🏇 Royal Ascot 1947 Ariostar Granville Stakes Oil Painting – In the Manner of Lionel Edwards

🏇 Royal Ascot 1947 Ariostar Granville Stakes Oil Painting – In the Manner of Lionel Edwards 🎩

📌 Subject & Medium

A characterful mid–late 20th-century oil on canvas board, dating to around the 1970s and now approaching fifty years old. The painting shows the racehorse Ariostar winning the Granville Stakes at Royal Ascot on 19th June 1947, as recorded on the original label verso.

Executed in traditional oil on a prepared canvas board, the work has a gently textured surface and a beautifully mellowed palette. It sits squarely in the classic British sporting tradition, painted in the manner of Lionel Edwards, with enough age and patina to feel genuinely vintage while remaining bright and decorative on the wall.

🖌️ Composition & Technique

The artist sets the scene from a raised vantage point high above the track, looking diagonally across the turf towards the finishing post. The eye is led along the racing line: Ariostar in full stretch at the head of the field, the chasing horses diminishing in scale as they fall behind, and beyond them the packed stands and distant trees under a soft English sky.

In the foreground, members of the crowd lean over the rails, their forms suggested by quick strokes of paint rather than detailed drawing. Dark coats and grey top hats indicate the gentlemen; flashes of red, blue, yellow and green suggest the ladies’ summer dresses and hats. This impressionistic handling animates the scene, giving the sense of hundreds of individuals without labouring every figure.

The horses and jockeys are treated with greater precision. Legs, heads and tack are clearly defined, conveying speed, balance and correct movement as they drive towards the line. The sky is a carefully modulated mix of creams, greys and pale blue, evoking a day of light cloud and fleeting sunshine rather than a featureless backdrop. The overall effect is one of controlled energy: accurate enough to satisfy the racing eye, painterly enough to appeal to lovers of impressionist sporting art.

🐎 About the Horse and Race

Ariostar was a bay filly foaled in 1945, by the important stallion Solario out of Co-Star. Though she did not race many times, she was a filly of real quality and is best remembered for finishing a very close second in the 1948 1000 Guineas at Newmarket, beaten only a head in a dramatic Classic finish. That result alone marks her out as one of the better fillies of her crop.

This painting, as stated on the verso inscription, depicts Ariostar winning the Granville Stakes at Royal Ascot on 19th June 1947, during her juvenile season. The artist chooses the decisive instant: Ariostar has drawn clear, the chasing pack is held at bay, and the crowd is focused entirely on the flash of horse and silk at the post.

For the racing enthusiast, the picture provides a tangible link to post-war form and a named horse with Classic credentials. For the decorative buyer, it offers a compelling story to tell: a specific filly, a specific race, and the glamour of Royal Ascot at a key moment in her short but distinguished career.

👩🎨 About the Artist

The work is signed by Gladys Harrison, a 20th-century British artist whose paintings are only now beginning to be recognised and recorded. This Royal Ascot scene is one of her best-documented works and shows a painter completely at ease with both equine subject matter and large crowd compositions.

Her approach here is clearly in the manner of Lionel Edwards. Like Edwards, she gives priority to the correctness of the horses’ action and the authenticity of race-day detail, while using a freer, more impressionistic stroke for the surrounding figures and landscape. The result sits comfortably alongside mid-century British sporting art while retaining its own character and charm. For collectors, this offers the appeal of a relatively scarce name producing a subject that feels instantly familiar and desirable.

🕰️ Historical Significance

Royal Ascot is one of Britain’s best-loved sporting and social institutions, founded in the early 18th century and closely associated with the Royal Family. The meeting in 1947 took place as Britain was emerging from the austerity of the Second World War, and race days such as this symbolised continuity, tradition and a longed-for return to pageantry and pleasure.

This painting captures that atmosphere perfectly: the formal elegance of morning dress, the bright scatter of summer hats and frocks, the geometry of rails and stands, and the thunder of hooves along the famous straight course. To own it is to own a piece of post-war British social history, where racing, fashion and society come together around a single galloping filly.

✍️ Signed

The painting carries a clear, original signature “Gladys Harrison” in the lower right corner. On the reverse, a handwritten label reads:

“Ariostar winning the Granville Stakes Royal Ascot June 19th 1947.”

Signature and inscription reinforce one another, confirming both the authorship and the subject. These details were subsequently repeated in professional auction cataloguing, adding an extra layer of confidence.

🖼 Framed

The work is housed in its traditional gilt frame, which suits the subject to perfection. The warm gold of the moulding complements the greens of the turf and the varied colours of the crowd, while the profile gently draws the eye inwards towards the painting.

The frame has the look and feel of a piece that has protected the painting for many years, the sort of thing you might expect to see in a trainer’s office, a racecourse boardroom or the study of a country house. A hanging thread is attached to the back, so the picture is ready to go straight onto the wall.

📏 Size

Approximate framed dimensions:

Height: 54 cm
Width: 69 cm
Depth: 3.3 cm

This is an ideal size for display: generous enough to make a strong impact above a desk, fireplace or sideboard, yet easy to place in a hallway, landing, study or snug. The wide horizontal format suits the sweeping, panoramic nature of the racing subject.

🧾 Provenance

The painting bears the stamp of Dick Abbott, Pictures, Framing & Mounts, Isaaccsons, 6 High Street, Burwell, indicating professional framing and early handling. It was later sold through Cheffins, Cambridge, where it was catalogued as:

“Gladys Harrison (20th-century British artist), Ariostar winning the Granville Stakes, Royal Ascot June 19th 1947.”

It then entered the collection of Cheshire Antiques Consultant. This clear, straightforward line of provenance—from framer, to auction house, to present collection—offers reassuring transparency for any buyer.

❤️ Why You’ll Love It

✅ You are not just buying a decorative sporting picture, but a slice of Royal Ascot history: a named, Classic-placed filly captured in full flight on one of racing’s most prestigious stages.

✅ The painting elegantly combines art, racing and social history, giving you a piece you can genuinely talk about—Ariostar, the Granville Stakes, the 1000 Guineas connection, and the great British tradition in the manner of Lionel Edwards.

✅ Its 1970s date, versatile size and warm, traditional look make it extremely easy to live with, equally at home in an office, study, hallway or sitting room, where it brings character, colour and a touch of country-house grandeur.

🔍 Condition Report

Condition report offered in fine used condition. Front painting surface having foxing stains also craquelure to the surface, the frame having general wear, scuffs, stains and chips, losses also paint losses and slight frame corner separation commensurate with usage & age.