Tales from the Body Box - Paragon, a portrait

This horse is not particularly famous.
He isn't a sporting legend, or a much-loved character from fiction or history, nor is he a founding father of his breed. Most horsey people will never have heard of him, nor had I beforehand, but from the very first time I encountered him, I liked this horse.

His story starts on a day out one summer, visiting Grimsthorpe castle, a grand home full of art and antiques, beautiful architecture and design. We were taken round by guided tour, no free-flow wandering, and as always, it was the horses in the paintings which I spent most time looking at, trying to take a moment longer to inspect the colours, the tack, the art style, then having to rush to catch up before the tour moved too far away. 

At one point, we were standing on the staircase, and the guide was telling about a huge, bigger-than-lifesize painting of a horse, some behind the scenes whispering that it might be a Stubbs which they wanted to have investigated by experts, I looked but it was a relatively bland painting - dark, dull, a lifeless looking plain horse standing still. Maybe it turns out to be a Stubbs, if so it's not one of his best.

The matching counterpart on the opposite side of the wall was another matter. A big imposing stallion, tense and alert and showing the white of his eye, and his colour beautifully detailed in a way which makes a modern horse-colour-enthusiast stop and stare. Bay sabino, brilliantly captured in oils, with white flashes and roaning, and several dark spots. I looked for as long as I could, then had to move along with the tour, no photography allowed inside the house I just had the image of this horse imprinted in my mind's eye, to try not to forget him.

I haven't been able to find the painting online anywhere since, but you can just about see him, peeping out from behind the left shoulder of the emperor Hadrian in this photo on the castle's own website.

A year or more later, another summer, another day out - Wimpole Hall, and this time free to wander at will through the mansion. I came into one room, and there was a huge horse painting above the mantelpiece, I made a bee-line for it, and there, in the lower right corner - the same horse. 

There's no mistaking those spots, three white and one brown just behind his shoulder, and all the white markings the same, too. I'd found the sabino stallion for a second time! 

And here, the painting had a caption plaque, crediting Dutch artist Abraham van Diepenbeeck but also containing the first clue in figuring out who he might be : 'Six Menage Horses belonging to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle'. 
William Cavendish was one of the most prominent 17th century writers on horsemanship and haute-école dressage training; if you've read any good books on the history of horse riding, schooling, or tack, the chances are you've seen some illustrations or quotations from his work. So this gave me a great starting point to research that horse, when I got home I started looking up the name of his book, and found this title page :

There, on the right : see three white spots behind the shoulder. It's that bay sabino! Further investigation, and I found this print...

There's the unmistakable spots, and more importantly, it's annotated. Welbeck, at the top of the page, is the name of Cavendish's stud, but below the horse's hooves we see Paragon un Barbe. Paragon. We have a name!

Determined searching brought up a fair selection of illustrations from the Duke's books, and the fascinating realisation that the horses providing the examples aren't just a standard generic mount to demonstrate poses and movements, but the Duke's own precious herd, clearly his pride and joy! Here's a few of those which feature Paragon...

 

  

This snippet of information from Thoroughbred Bloodlines adds a bit more history to the horse's story :
"A royalist who left England following the defeat of the King's army at Marston Moor, Newcastle attained lasting fame during his tenure in Rotterdam where he established a riding school which cultivated the art of haute-école or high-school dressage riding and published his first work on horsemanship titled La Méthode et Invention Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux (1657-58). Whilst in Holland he also acquired eight barbary horses in which he was reputed to take great delight. All of them appear in one or more paintings by Abraham van Diepenbeke including the Turk named Machomilia and the brightly coloured Barb named Paragon."

The fact Paragon is illustrated with Welbeck Abbey in the background suggests that he came back to England with the Duke after the Restoration - he may have been used at the stud there, though I had a little rummage around the records and he doesn't seem to feature in any early Thoroughbred pedigrees like other arabian and barb stallions in the 17th century foundations of the breed. It seems his trail goes cold at this point, but I'm hugely satisfied to have gone from standing awed by a single painting, to knowing so much about him.

Of course, after all this investigation, I just had to make my own mini version of Paragon. 

I chose the G2 Morgan mould, for the pose (matching the second painting I saw), and the fitting proportions of small head, arched neck, deep chest, and strong quarters. I did some resculpting for the mane & tail, tweaked his profile, and made his feet bigger, and then set him aside because his colour was difficult; a pause in progress which lasted around four years!
A few weeks ago, I found him, and with painting going well lately, decided it was time to tackle that unforgettable sabino and spotted coat at last...

There he is! A fascinating paintjob to work on, trying to catch the ideal point between realism and matching the oil painted style of the artwork which first introduced me to this flashy little stallion. I've left him a little more brushstrokey, a little more 'painty' looking than I'd usually try on a sabino coat, with smudgey shading and a soft edge to his white markings.

He's got a great little face, wide forehead and expressive eyes, and I think this mould really works for that - there's much more pink eyewhite than I'd usually paint myself, but it's such a feature of his own portrait and general equine art in this era, I had to include it in his 3D portrait too!

The original mould has a longer tail to provide the third balancing point for it to stand, but Paragon's portrait shows his tail cut square and well above the ground whenever it's pictured loose, so he has a pin glued into the end of it to hold him upright.

I really am happy with him, how well he matches his portrait and that I finally managed to get him finished after being put on hold for so long, because painting motivation is a tricky thing and I'd been putting off the creation stage even though I really wanted him to exist!