26l 



JOHN WOOTTON. 



(Born circa 1685. Died 1765.) 



JOHN WOOTTON was born about the year 

 1685. Matthew Pilkington, Horace Walpole, 

 and other authorities state that he was at one time 

 a pupil of John Wyck, the celebrated Dutch painter, 

 whose battle scenes, equestrian pictures, and hunt- 

 ing and hawking pieces are well known. If 

 Wootton did enjoy the advantages of John Wyck's 

 tuition, he must have done so when he was very 

 young, the Dutch master having died at Mortlake 

 in 1702, when Wootton would have been about 

 seventeen years of age, if we are correct in be- 

 lieving 1685 to have been the year of his birth. 



After studying in London, Wootton took up his 

 residence at Newmarket for the purpose of painting 

 the likenesses of horses ; and during his stay here 

 he executed his principal works connected with the 

 turf. Seymour and Spencer were at this time 

 hardly out of the nursery, and Peter Tilleman 

 devoted no attention to this department of art ; 

 John Wootton, therefore, stood practically alone 

 as a painter of equine portraits, and found many 



