John Mulcahy examines the commissioning and provenance of this striking 18th-century sporting screen painted by Richard Roper
One of the most unusual examples of equine art in Ireland in the 18th century was the 1759 screen painted by Richard Roper for John ‘Diamond’ Knox, the squire of Castle Rea, Killala, County Mayo (Fig 2). It is decorated with thirty paintings of horses and hunting scenes on its two sides and is framed in William Kent style with olive green on the front and Chinese red on the reverse (Figs 1&3). And the story of its provenance is an intriguing tale
