Pictures, Furniture, Clocks & Rugs

JAMES WARD, RA (1769-1859) ROCKING-HORSE Signed indistinctly lower right corner, oil on canvas 49.5 x 64.5cm. Engraved: In mezzotint by the artist, 1793 Exhibited: London, The Royal Academy, 1792, no.356 Provenance: By family tradition, the picture was won in a card game from the Earl Spencer by Brigadier Gordon Barry, CBE, DSO, MC, the vendor's grandfather in law. An indistinct label on the stretcher reads Baron Spencer of Althorp/ afterwards Viscount Althorp/ with his sister/ Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds/ Althorp Northampton. Although John Charles Spencer (1782-1845) and his sister, Lady Sarah (1787-1870), were apparently about the right ages in 1792, the suggested link with the Spencer family is otherwise wholly uncorroborated.