Sawrey Gilpin - A Horse Grazing - B2001.2.842 - Yale Center for British Art

Gilpin was born in Carlisle in Cumbria, Kingdom of Great Britain. He was the seventh child of Captain John Bernard Gilpin, a soldier and amateur artist, and Matilda Langstaffe. He was the younger brother of the Rev. William Gilpin, a clergyman and schoolmaster who wrote of several influential works on picturesque scenery. As a child Gilpin learnt to draw from his father, who ran a drawing school in Carlisle. Having shown an early predilection for art, he was sent to London at the age of fourteen to study under the marine painter Samuel Scott in Covent Garden. Gilpin, however, preferred sketching the passing market carts and horses, and it soon became evident that animals, especially horses, were his speciality. Gilpin left Scott in 1758, and devoted himself to animal painting from then on. Some of his sketches were shown to the Duke of Cumberland, who was much impressed by them, and employed Gilpin to draw from his stud at Newmarket and at Windsor, where he was ranger of the Great Park. He afforded the artist considerable material assistance in his profession.