Riders, grooms and the hunt
Horses
Horses held, ridden, sold and admired. Han Gan’s white horse pulling at its post under centuries of collectors’ seals, grooms leading horses in Zhao Mengfu’s ink, a grey-blue Persian stallion, the white horses rearing at Bonheur’s horse fair, Stubbs’s bay hunter under a tree, Géricault’s horsewoman, and Rubens’s wolf hunt beside the young Landseer’s copy of it. From China, Persia and the Indian courts, and from Flanders, Britain and France.
As a puzzle
Look for the horse first. A white coat or a dark flank stands out against almost any ground, and the Indian pages, with flat colour and patterned borders, go kindly. The crowded ones are slower: the Rubens hunt and Meissonier’s charge are a tangle of legs, the Chinese scrolls are mostly pale paper and red seals, and the two oil sketches of riders are brown on brown. Keep the count moderate.
A good size here: 50–200 pieces.
Styles here: Indian PaintingRomanticismFlemish BaroqueBritish PaintingAcademic PaintingChinese PaintingArt NouveauSymbolismDutch Golden AgePersian PaintingRealism
Painters here: Henri de Toulouse-LautrecPeter Paul RubensEugène DelacroixJoshua ReynoldsHenry Raeburn
31 pictures, pick one to build
At the Circus: The Spanish Walk (Au Cirque: Le Pas espagnol) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1899 
The Horse Fair Rosa Bonheur, 1852–55 
Maharana Sangram Singh Riding a Prize Stallion Stipple Master, ca. 1712 
Equestrian Portrait of Cornelis (1639–1680) and Michiel Pompe van Meerdervoort (1638–1653) with Their Tutor and Coachman Aelbert Cuyp, ca. 1652–53 
Night-Shining White Han Gan, ca. 750 
A Woman and a Man on Horseback Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1879–81 
Maharana Sarup Singh Inspects a Prize Stallion Tara, 1845–46 
A Stallion Painting by Habiballah of Sava, ca. 1601–6 
Seated Arab Man with Horse Alfred Dedreux, possibly ca. 1850–58 
The Triumph of Henry IV Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1630 
Copy after Rubens's "Wolf and Fox Hunt" Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, ca. 1824–26 
A Cavalryman Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, 1884 
The Chariot of Apollo Odilon Redon, 1905–16 
Grooms and horses Zhao Mengfu, dated 1296 and 1359 
Equestrian Portrait Unknown artist, late 19th–early 20th century 
The Abduction of Rebecca Eugène Delacroix, 1846 
Wolf and Fox Hunt Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop, ca. 1616 
The Third Duke of Dorset's Hunter with a Groom and a Dog George Stubbs, 1768 
The Dispatch-Bearer Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, 1880 
Autumn Meadows Formerly attributed to Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1912–17 
Equestrian Portrait of Maharana Bhim Singh Ghasi, ca. 1825 
Horsewoman Théodore Géricault, 1820 or later 
A Man Mounting a Horse Attributed to Anthony van Dyck, ca. 1630 
Captain George K. H. Coussmaker (1759–1801) Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1782 
1807, Friedland Ernest Meissonier, ca. 1861–75 
Pleasures of the Hunt Unknown artist, ca. 1800 
Ovid among the Scythians Eugène Delacroix, 1862 
A Man Riding a Horse Attributed to Anthony van Dyck, ca. 1630 
George Harley Drummond (1783–1855) Sir Henry Raeburn, ca. 1808–9 
Kalki Avatar, the Future Incarnation of Vishnu: Page from a Dispersed Manuscript Unknown artist, ca. 1760–70 
The Turkish Patrol Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, ca. 1855–56