Adam's Country House Collections At Townley Hall 11th October 2016 : You can Download a PDF Version from the Bottom Menu Down Arrow Icon

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John Osborne Pollock (1812-1886), Master of the Meath Hunt with Hounds and the Field in a North

Meath Landscape with the Cavan Hills in the Distance

Oil on canvas, 69 x 90cm

Signed

John Osborne Pollock married Maria Louisa Darley of Wingfield, Co. Wicklow, who was also a

renowned breeder of prize cattle and commissioned many itinerant artists to record the stock and

horses at Mountainstown.

€ 30,000 - 50,000

Foxhunting in County Meath is a well rooted sport. Christopher Nicholson of Balrath is recorded as

keeping a pack of hounds in 1723. The Meath Hunt came together in the Regency period by the amal-

gamation of individually owned packs. In 1813 the Gerrard and Pollock packs combined and, being

kept in kennels by the old castle, were known as the Clongill Hunt, with Pollock as master.

With the combination of other packs, the hunt formally changed its title to ‘The Meath’ and in 1841 a

committee comprising John Pollock, John Tisdall and Thomas Rothwell put the hunt into good shape

and it continues merrily to this day, having become one of the most renowned hunts under the stew-

ardship of the famous Sam Reynell who laid out coverts and brought in the best strains of hounds.

John Pollock resigned after the first class season of 1845 and it seems that this picture commemorates

this, being completed in his studio by Bretland the following year.

Bretland was part of the tradition of English artists, starting with Ferneley and going on to Baldock,

Lynwood Palmer, Munnings, Lionel Edwards and ‘Snaffles’, painting Irish hunts. It is strange that in

Ireland, with its great equestrian tradition, with the exception of individuals, no native Irish school of

sporting artists emerged.

John Osborne Pollock, seated outside Mountainstown house circa 1880