Benjamin Marshall was born in Seagrave, Leicestershire, where (in his brother-in-law's will) he is recorded as having been a schoolmaster. In 1791 he moved to London, where he briefly studied under the portrait painter Lemuel Francis Abbott, and by 1795 had occupied a studio at 23 Beaumont Street. Specializing in racing and hunting pictures, he quickly established a strong reputation, taking on John Ferneley and Abraham Cooper as pupils. In 1812 he moved to Newmarket where he continued to be much in demand. Marshall had, among painters, a unique position in the racing world. He himself frequently wrote in The Sporting Magazine and his friendship with the printmaker John Scott led to as many as sixty engravings of his work being featured in the publication. He was, however, first and foremost, a horse painter par excellence, and it was his mastery of this genre that secured him such patrons as Lord Scarbrough and the Duke of Rutland.

The horse in this painting can be identified as Duke of Beaufort’s stallion named ‘Lop’, a racehorse who retired at the Duke’s stud at Badminton. The prime version of the portrait is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 401255) and was presumably painted for George IV, Prince of Wales; it was first recorded as an addition to the 1861 Hampton Court inventory (no 1147).