Richard Ansdell was born on 11 May 1815 at Liverpool in Lancashire. He was the son of Thomas Griffiths Ansdell, a ship’s pulley block maker at Liverpool Docks and Anne Jackson, a seamstress. His father died when he was young and he was educated at the Bluecoat School. He was subsequently trained by the portrait painter W C Smith. Thereafter, he travelled to Holland, painting signs for a circus.  In 1836 he became a student at the Liverpool Academy. He established his reputation in and around Liverpool for commissions featuring landowners and their animals, and travelled in Northern England and Scotland painting hunting and agricultural scenes. The year 1840 marked his debut at the Royal Academy in London, where he showed Grouse Shooting: Lunch on the Moors and A Galloway Farm at the. His largest commission at that time was The Country Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at Bristol which was 16 feet long and included 125 individual portraits. In 1841 he married fellow Liverpudlian Maria Romer and they went on to have eleven children – only one dying in infancy. In the period 1840-85 Ansdell exhibited at the RA each year, showing 149 paintings in all. He also exhibited some 30 canvasses at the British Institution.  His popularity was established by two paintings in particular: The Combat which portrayed two red stags locked in battle and The Fight for the Standard at the Battle of Waterloo (1848) which depicted a famous episode during the Battle of Waterloo, in which Sergeant Charles Ewart of the Scots Greys carried off the colours of the French 45th Infantry Regiment. That 13 by 11 feet picture hangs in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle. Ansdell specialised in oil paintings of animal and sporting subjects. He was also an engraver and etcher. His work became highly popular through the circulation of engravings of his works. He became one of the most successful Victorian sporting artists. He often collaborated on huge productions with artists such as Thomas Creswick (1811–69) and William Powell Frith (1819-1909), populating their landscapes with his animals. Ansdell owned collies and often used them as models in his paintings. He built his own lodge on the banks of Loch Laggan and painted stags in glens, sheep on hillsides, moorland and mountain scenes, sheep-dipping, everyday scenes in a shepherd’s life and shooting parties. His paintings portray a rich tapestry of life in the Highlands of Scotland. A much repeated theme in his work is the concept of the shepherd rescuing a stray lamb, and he produced several paintings titled The Rescue. Often, these depicted lambs separated from their mothers and being rescued off of rock faces and cliffs. His subject matter was compared to that of Edwin Landseer, though critical opinion held that, though popular, his works lacked the latter’s emotional impact. His reputation was that of a hardworking, but occasionally over-proud artist. He received no royal commissions, after refusing to paint Queen Victoria’s dogs, unless they were brought to his studio. Ansdell was elected President of the Liverpool Academy in 1845, but resigned in 1852 in protest over an award of the £50 prize to Holman Hunt for the controversial Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus. In 1847 he left Liverpool and moved to London. Kensington was a popular destination for many artists, having none of the bohemian undertones of Chelsea. He lived in a large property called Lytham House, after his beloved Lytham St Annes. He was elected ARA in 1861 and RA in 1870. His Diploma Work of a deer held at bay by a staghound was The Chase (1870). Hel was awarded a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855. He initially visited Spain in the company of the artist John Phillip (1817-67) and his travels had a major impact on his work. During the last 25 years of his life, he sold over 180 paintings for more than 3,000,000 francs. Ansdell’s dramatic work The Hunted Slaves (1861; International Slavery Museum, Liverpool) depicted two runaway slaves, turning to face a pack of mastiffs pursuing them. When the painting was first exhibited, Ansdell included a quotation in the catalogue from the Longfellow poem The Dismal Swamp, which described the flight of an escaped slave. Ansdell died on 20 April 1885 at ‘Collingwood Tower’ at Frimley in Surrey and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking. His painting A Ploughing Match may be found in the collection of the Tate in London. Website at www.richardansdell.co.uk/