John Harris after Harry Hall

Voltigeur, Winner of the Derby Stakes at Epsom, the Doncaster Great St. Leger and the Doncaster Cup 1850. The property of the Earl of Zetland.
Was got by Voltaire out of Martha Lynn by Mulatto, her Dam Leda by Filho da Puta. Trained by R. Hill.

36 x 30.5 inches

A large-scale aquatint in full original colour; engraved by John Harris after Harry Hall and published in London in 1850.

Voltigeur was one of the most famous racehorses of the mid-nineteenth century. He was born in 1847 and by 1850 he had beaten The Flying Dutchman in a particularly exciting Doncaster Cup. The following year in 1851 it was the Flying Dutchman's turn to win when Voltigeur was beaten by a length at York in what became known as The Great Match and is acknowledged to be the most celebrated race in British thoroughbred history. The crowd at York was rumoured to be in excess of 100,000 and the whole country became swept up in the excitement of the race. In this image we see the horse's owner, the Earl of Zetland, holding the reigns and chatting to the jockey.

Harris and Hall were a formidable combination of engraver and artist, working throughout the middle of the C19th when sporting and marine aquatints were at the height of their popularity.