Oil on canvas, 62.2cm by 75.6cm.
Signed l.r.: R.C. Whitford 1878.
The artist became an animal portraitist in his late twenties, specialising in painting prize cattle, sheep, pigs, horses and dogs.
His animal paintings were highly sought after and a number of them in Queen Victoria’s collection were inscribed ‘Animal Painter to the Queen’.
This painting would, almost certainly, have been commissioned by William Alleyne, 3rd Marquess of Exeter (1825-1895), who bred a prize-winning herd of dairy shorthorn cattle on the Home Farm at Burghley.
