On your wall
Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant · The Sporting Print
Matilda, the winner of the Great St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster, 1827
R. G. Reeve after John Frederick Herring Sr., hand-coloured engraving, 1828 · hand-coloured engraving
What it is
Matilda crosses the Doncaster line in Reeve's engraving after Herring, her mane flattened by a finish the plate captures secondhand.
Why it matters
Matilda's St Leger win was notable simply because she was a filly beating the colts, and Reeve's popular print carried that result into houses no oil painting ever reached.
What to notice
the forward stretch of the neck and the flattened mane, the engraver's shorthand for speed a painter would render slower.
A filly's win still had to travel by paper.
Provenance
- Maker
- R. G. Reeve after John Frederick Herring Sr., hand-coloured engraving, 1828
- Era
- The Georgian Turf (1750–1837)
- Chapter
- The String at Full Stretch
- Medium
- hand-coloured engraving
- Made
- 1828
- Horse
- Matilda
- Source
- Private collection
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 2.63× from the surviving 2285×1936 scan by AI enhancement (Claid smart-enhance), prepared for the considered detail of a print viewed at distance. The source record above is unchanged — the enhancement serves the wall, not the archive.
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the work’s own year of publication. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-20.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 24x36" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
Steeplechasing — The Start
‘Elis’, Winner of the St Leger, 1836
Fores’s National Sports — The Run In
The Trotting Mare Nancy Hanks
Elsewhere in the family
- The Links — the other morning religion.
- Painted Lineage — the bloodline, beside the family line.
- Painted Earth — home ground as a period map.