This weekend in Lexington, Kentucky, under the watchful eye of the iconic weathervane of 1955 U.S. Horse of the Year Nashua that stands atop the Keeneland Sales Pavilion, another legendary Hall of Fame horse will enter the sales ring.
Remarkably, a late-19th century copper and zinc weathervane of 16-time leading North American sire Lexington — noted as the stylistic inspiration for the Nashua vane — will be up for bid on Sunday (November 21) during the 9th annual Sporting Art Auction, presented in partnership by the Keeneland Association and Cross Gate Gallery.
This rare sporting piece, which is more aptly classified as Americana, is anticipated to fetch between $25,000 and $35,000 — bullet holes and all, for the copper hollow-body Lexington has not been restored and retains its natural verdigris patina from weathering over time.
“Not many constructed in the last quarter of the 19th century have ever come up for auction at all, so there may only be a few left,” said Cross Gate’s Gallery Director, Bill Meng, about weathervanes of the period. Regarding the Lexington piece that is listed as lot 46, Meng said, “It is in the best shape I have seen of the ones that are still out there,” due to it having a cast zinc head versus cast iron, which often rusts and deteriorates.
Sunday’s auction will offer 192 consignments by international artists from 18 countries in the sporting art genre — paintings of flat and jump racing, polo matches and foxhunting, as well as animal sculpture and livestock art.
While the artwork has been available for advance viewing at the pavilion since Keeneland’s October race meeting and during the November Breeding Stock Sale, the full catalogue is also available on the auction website for browsing the lots, many of which include detailed descriptions related to the equine and sporting art subjects.
Bids for artwork will be accepted via absentee, online and telephone from buyers worldwide who are not in attendance at the auction.
As illustrated by the exceptional Lexington piece, not just serious collectors will find the artwork interesting. Fans of equine sports will discover a compelling range of horses and races that are represented in the auction lots, from depictions of the Grand National and Derby Day at Epsom, to works by the great British master of sporting art Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959) and the whimsical racing caricatures of French artist Pierre Bellocq, aka ‘Peb’ (born 1926).
Two particularly timely pieces for sale (lots 115 and 116) are the original paintings of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club beach and paddock scenes that served as the cover artwork for the official programs of the 2021 Breeders’ Cup, painted by Russian artist Valeriy Gridnev (born 1956).
The cover of this year’s catalogue features the vibrant piece by French artist Claude Grosperrin (1939-1977), La Coupe D’Argent à Deauville (lot 109), depicting the Silver Cup polo tournament that is contested in the center of Deauville racecourse. Deauville’s polo club was founded in 1907, but the sport upon the track’s lawn dates back to 1880, when a match was played between French and English teams.
Though these two consignments are unrelated, the auction features two trios of celebrated Thoroughbreds by the leading contemporary horse painters of their time: Three Kings, Claiborne Farm(Nijinsky II, Spectacular Bid and Secretariat), lot 66, by Richard Stone Reeves (1919-2005) and a Coolmore trio, Three Epsom winners, Van Dyck, Serpentine, Galileo, lot 158, by Polish-American artist Andre Pater (born 1953).
“Reeves was so well known in his time illustrating for Sports Illustrated and he was ‘the’ conformation painter in the second half of the 20th century, and now Andre is probably the best living sporting artist,” said Meng.
Reeves’s oil on canvas of the Claiborne stallions from 1981 is a familiar piece that was reproduced as a lithograph, while Pater’s work is a pen-and-ink study of three modern English Derby champions — the late Galileo, 2001 Derby winner and 12-time leading sire in Britain and Ireland, and his two sons who captured the race’s 2019 and 2020 editions, the late Anthony Van Dyck and Serpentine.
Patrons of ParisLongchamp, which is home to a statue of the phenomenal 19th-century French horse Gladiateur, will recognize the name of lot 2, the 1867 eponymous portrait by British artist Harry Hall (1815-1882). Hall’s oil-on-canvas painting captures the 5-year-old Gladiateur, who was the first foreign runner to sweep the English Triple Crown - in 1865. “When Gladiateur gallops, the other horses seem to stand still,” wrote the English papers.
Bred at Count Frederic de Lagrange’s Haras Dangu in Normandy and trained at Newmarket, Gladiateur won three races by an astonishing 40 lengths — the Drawing Room Stakes at Goodwood, the Newmarket Derby and the Ascot Gold Cup — and dominated in France with victories including the Grand Prix de Paris and the Grand Prix de l’Empereur, the latter of which was renamed the Prix Gladiateur and continues to be run at ParisLongchamp.
Thoroughbred racing fans will appreciate that the Keeneland Association’s portion of auction proceeds benefit its charitable initiatives, including the Keeneland Library Foundation. This research repository is one of the world’s largest archives engaged in the important role of preserving the wealth of information related to the sport, ranging from newspaper clippings and books to photographs, video replays and historic race charts.
The Sporting Art Auction will be held at the Keeneland Sales Pavilion on Sunday, November 21, at 1 pm ET. Click here to visit the website to access the catalogue and for information about the available online bidding platforms.