Henri DeLattre (French/American, 1801-1876)
TWO HORSES IN A PENNSYLVANIA LANDSCAPE
Oil on canvas, 28 3/4" x 37"
Signed and dated 1849 This painting, depicting a bay and a chestnut horse, is thought to have been painted at Hunting Park, part of the Philadelphia estate of Dr. John Dickinson Logan. Augustin-Henri DeLattre was commissioned to paint several pieces for Dr. Dickinson Logan, and, based on the fieldstone house in the background, it is highly likely that this is one of them. The Logan House still stands in the Hunting Park area today.
DeLattre's subject matter consisted mainly of animal portraits and landscapes, which he regularly exhibited at the Paris Salon starting in 1824. DeLattre made a three-year tour of the United States in 1836, where he found ample work painting the favorite racehorses for some of the foremost horseman of the day, Colonel William
Ransom Johnson and Colonel Wade Hampton. While he found sufficient work and gained considerable esteem, DeLattre never attained the prominence he sought and lived in the shadow of the eminent painter Edward Troye. After returning to France in 1839,
DeLattre received high praise for his portrait of the great racehorse Boston (which was reproduced in the American Turf Register). After the February Revolution of 1848, DeLattre suffered political exile due to his family's political leanings, at which point he returned to the United States.
In March of 1849, Alexis de Tocqueville, famed French political thinker of the Revolution, sent letters to a Mr. Edward Everett, among others, in which he praised DeLattre as a highly talented artist and honorable character and requested that they support his compatriot. DeLattre met tremendous success upon his arrival in
Philadelphia - partially due to Everett's referrals and Philadelphia contacts, but largely because of his highly praised 1839 portrait of Boston. He established himself on Locust Street in Philadelphia in the spring of 1849 and his Study of a Donkey was shown at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts that year. DeLattre finished the
year with a painting of Boston (which later became part of Walter M. Jeffords' collection), the painting that salvaged his 1839 trip to the States. He also completed several works that year that would later be lithographed by Nathaniel Currier (of Currier & Ives fame). In 1849 DeLattre painted this particular work on the estate of Dr. John Dickinson Logan of Philadelphia, who afterwards became a great patron of DeLattre's, procuring his services for five additional documented commissions and possibly more.
Dr. Logan was a descendant of two prominent and historically important Pennsylvania families, both of whom played critical roles in the development of the commonwealth and the formation of the country. Dr. Logan was the grandson of John Dickinson, who was coined the "Penman of the Revolution" for his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania and was lauded by Thomas Jefferson as: "among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain whose name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution." John Dickinson is the namesake for Dickinson College, the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University, and the Dickinson Complex at the University of Delaware. His paternal grandfather was James Logan, who came to the colony as William Penn's secretary aboard the Canterbury in 1699. He was elected mayor of Philadelphia in 1722, served as the colony's chief justice from 1731 to 1739, became acting governor of Pennsylvania from 1736 to 1738, and is widely considered to be Benjamin Franklin's mentor. Dr. Logan was the consummate sportsman, a gentleman of the highest regard, and a longstanding member of the Maryland Jockey Club.
Henri DeLattre recorded the greatest Thoroughbreds, trotters and pacers of a golden age of sport. His paintings show the progression and adaptation that all great artists strive for and embrace - his ability to depict his subjects true to form was one of the strongest of his era. While many before him would try to correctly capture the movement of a horse in motion, DeLattre was the first to break from the tradition of depicting horses running with all four legs splayed and attempted to capture their accurate movements.