John Wootton (British: 1686-1765)

"English landscape and sporting painter. He probably received some instruction from Jan Wyck in the 1690s, and he was possibly patronized from an early age by the aristocratic households of Beaufort and Coventry (as was Wyck), perhaps while working as a page to Lady Anne Somerset at Snitterfield House, Warwicks. His earliest extant dated work is the horse portrait Bonny Black (1711; Belvoir Castle, Leics). By this time he had begun to establish himself in London. He was a subscriber to the first English Academy of Painting and Drawing in 1711 and by 1717 had been elected a steward of the Virtuosi Club of St Lukes. He specialized very successfully in horse subjects, but h...