Francis Jukes after Charles Loraine Smith.

The Bilsden Coplow Day.
Inscribed by Permission to the Most Noble The Marchioness of Salisbury.
A view of Mr. Meynell's Hounds carrying a head with their second fox! at the end of a chase from Bilsden Coplow in Leicestershire past Tilton Woods Sheffington Earth's crossing the River Sour below Whetstone to Enderby Warren. Making a distance of twenty eight miles which was run in two hours and fifteen minutes on Monday the 24th Feb.y 1800.

34 x 29 inches

What is particularly interesting about this beautiful bucolic scene is the artist, Charles Loraine Smith, who appears mounted, in the blue coat, to the bottom right of the picture. Loraine Smith was quite a character! Born in 1751 he lived a long and colourful life until his death in 1835. He was a well known sportsman, a politician, an accomplished artist and a fierce advocate of hunting to hounds. The Bilsden Coplow race for members of the hunt was a much acclaimed event held on his estate at Enderby in Leicestershire. The original painting can be found in the Leicester Museum collection but this print gives us a tremendous sense of the excitement surrounding the race day. Loraine Smith's notoriety as a sportsman and bonvivant was such that an affectionate poem was written about him after his death by a certain Mr. Heyrick:
Oh !how could you bury our neighbour so soon !
Why, his boots were just black'd, and his fiddle in tune.
As a staunch, steady sportsman, and quite orthodox.