192 ANIMAL PAINTERS 



was engraved in mezzotint by Valentine Green, 

 the celebrated mezzotint engraver. The latter 

 works are in the Cambridge House collection, 

 and the former of the two, it may be added 

 parenthetically, was selected for mutilation by 

 burglars who broke into the house in 1892, the 

 head of the dapple-grey horse having been cut out, 

 " Pegasus at the Fountain of Hippocrene, being 

 haltered by Perseus," is another of the pictures 

 which displays Gilpin's talent for the presentment 

 of scenes mythological and fanciful. This work is 

 said to have been painted for a wager. At a party 

 of artists, the possibility of painting a horse with 

 wino^s and without obvious and flagrant violation 

 of anatomical laws was discussed. Sawrey Gilpin 

 declared his ability to do it, his brother artists 

 defying him to perform a feat they deemed im- 

 possible ; Colonel Mitford, Professor of Ancient 

 History at the Royal Academy, who was of the 

 party, laughingly offered to bet him a hundred 

 guineas he failed to paint the winged horse of 

 mythologists, and Gilpin took the wager. By a 

 clever but simple artifice the artist won his bet : 

 he drew Pegasus in the act of alighting, his wings 

 being so disposed that the spectator does not see 

 whence they spring, and anatomical laws are kept 

 inviolate. This picture is now in the collection of 

 Mr. A. B. Freeman- Mitford, C.B., at Batsford 



