Tuesday, January 1, 2008

My concept

Well, I have had an interest in Arabian horses since I was about 12 years old. To me, of all the horse breeds, they are the most beautiful. The Thoroughbred, my second favourite, is the most courageous.

Lady Wentworth (Judith Blunt-Lytton) was the inheritor of Crabbet Stud, the English foundation stud of the Arabian horse. She was quite a character, and it is interesting to see that even today people still have contraversial ideas about her.

The stallion that she purchased and began the controversy was, of course, Skowronek. I could not find any photographs of her without him. So the two photos I downloaded, from the public domain have her with him.

She was trained as an artist, and I noted that recently some of her waterpaintings were sold for quite healthy prices. She also modelled for artists and was a beautiful woman in her own right. One of my photographs shows this quite clearly.

Of her breeding program, no one could doubt she was a formidible character. But what I also found admiring about her was that she was prepared to stand up and be counted when it came to things Arabian, including contradicting American men who thought they knew more than she did.

I always have admired the stronger women of history, and there are plenty that I could choose to conceptualise into a piece of art, but I think Lady Wentworth tops the list of Admirable women in Arabian horse history.

As a point of interest, Lady Wentworth's grandmother, was Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron. Yes, the one who helped Babbage with his computer concept and who wrote the first programming language.

I am going to do a collage of her.

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