Spaniel on the Scent

Oil on canvas
5 1/2 x7 1/8 ins
14 x 18 cms

Reinagle’s parents emigrated to Scotland from Hungary as part of the Young Pretender movement just four years before he was born. At the age of fourteen, Reinagle studied art in Edinburgh under the eminent portrait painter Allan Ramsey, for whom his son Ramsey Richard Reinagle (1775-1862) was later named. Reinagle then served as an assistant to Ramsey the latter’s studio for the repetition of royal portraits. Although he began his career as a portrait painter, he became famous for painting almost all subject matters with a high and equal level of competence. His paintings include portraits, animals, sporting scenes, still lifes and landscapes, which he painted in the style of the Dutch masters. If one had to choose a subject at which he particularly excelled it would have to be his birds which are energetic with beautiful skies above.

Reinagle was extremely prolific as well, exhibiting over 150 paintings, mostly at the Royal Academy and the British Institute. Some titles include A Representation of Mister Money’s Situation when He Fell into the Sea with a Balloon, A Peregrine Hawk upon a Woodcock, A View in the Bay of Sarza Near Genoa, A Spanish Pointer, and Moor Shooting. His son Ramsey Richard became an even more productive painter and exhibited over 300 paintings at the same prestigious venues. Reinagle’s two daughters, Fanny and Charlotte, also exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institute. All told, Reinagle was the patriarch of a family of twelve artists.