Portrait of the greyhound Major, ca. 1815

George Philip Reinagle (1802 - 1835)

RA Collection: Art

A copy, in black and white chalk, after Philip Reinagle's portrait of Major, the 'famous greyhound' belonging to Colonel Thomas Thornton. This painting was engraved and published in William Taplin's The Sportsman's Cabinet, London, 1803, vol I , opposite p. 30. Thornton and his friend Major Topham bred greyhounds for coursing hares and succeeded in producing a set of successful dogs 'of the highest celebrity' (Taplin, vol I, p.41). Major was one of these famous dogs and was said to have been unbeaten. Reinagle's painting was sold as lot X, 42 at a studio sale after the artist's death (see RA archive RE/8).

George Philip Reinagle was a marine painter and the son of Ramsay Richard Reinagle. His father had not allowed him to study drawing before he reached the age of 16 but thereafter he relented and taught George Philip himself. This drawing probably came into J.H. Smith's collection in 1875 on the death of his friend Oriana Georgiana Reinagle, daughter of Philip Reinagle and George Philip's aunt. In her will she left J. H. Smith a number of her own drawings and others by various members of her family.