Marshall began his training in London in 1791 with the portrait painter Lemuel Francis Abbott (c. 1760-1802); he rapidly became a sporting specialist and moved near Newmarket in 1812.

This is one of six horse paintings (RCIN 400998, 401255, 401459, 401256, 400999, 405033) executed (judging from the horses) around 1794, within a few years of Stubbs’s similar set of royal horse pictures (executed 1791-2). All six paintings are signed and include the inscription ‘for G.P.W.’(George, Prince of Wales), though they are first recorded at ‘Stud Lodge’ in 1868.

Curricle was a favourite hunter of the Prince’s which he kept at Kempshott House, near Basingstoke. A dark bay, saddled and bridled, is led by a huntsman in royal livery of scarlet coat.