Theodore Canneel - Study Of A Jockey's Face -

Theodore Canneel (1817-1892).
Study of a jockey's face.
Oil on paperlaid down on cardboard.
Signed on the collar, left T. Canneel.

Former pupil of Pieter vaan Hanselaere, Theodore Canneel was professor from 1846 and then director at the Academy of Ghent. He travelled to Holland in 1842, and to Italy in 1848.
He painted some historical paintings, nowadays kept in the Ghent Museum, but also portraits and executed large decorative compositions in the Church of St. Saviour and the Church of St. Anne in Ghent.
This beautiful sketch shows a jockey with a fur hat. It is to be compared with similar subjects by Horace Vernet, who, as a passionate horseman, executed many equestrian scenes with equal spontaneity and freedom of touch.