Description
19th Century English Primitive Oil Painting. An oil on canvas of a ‘British White’ prize bull in a mountain landscape is of the naive English school.
Indistinctly signed R.H.M.B.xxxxx
Often paintings of over-sized livestock were commissioned by stock breeders in the 19th century to advertise and promote their prize animals, exaggerating their merits.
The arrival of mass-produced images after 1860, (particularly the development of colour printing and photography) drastically reduced the supply of naive art. These paintings are now quite rare and much sought after by collectors, particularly in the United States. Much of this genre of art was painted anonymously.
A naive oil on canvas but of an ‘English White Cow’ was sold recently at auction by Moore Allen & Innocent, Cirencester for £12,600.
Christies sold a very similar naive bull oil on canvas on 17th June 2015 lot 116 @ £6250.00
Ref: British Folk Art Collection, Peter Moores Foundation, Andras and Dorothy Kalman. Nov. 1993. Frontispiece shows a British White Cow, “Maria”, 5 years old and 154 stone. Ca. 1820.
