Oil on canvas, 57.5 by 76.5 cm
Provenance: Foster's, London, 27 March 1935; Frederick Lessore, thence by descent

It has been suggested that the rider depicted could be Ekaterina Wassillowna who performed ‘voltage on unsaddled horse’ in the 1929/30 circus. Ekaterina’s act was third on the bill and a photograph of her appearing in the programme shows her holding a feathered headdress, not dissimilar to the one worn by the performer in the present painting. Ninth on the bill was the Wolthings Trio, which Lessore captured in The Daredevils (now in Hastings Art Gallery). The 1929/30 circus was the very last season in which the circus Swallow owned and operated appeared in Islington, because he had to sell everything off in the autumn of 1930. While he still occupied the role of circus director at the New World’s Fair for several years, from December 1930 all the acts were hired in for the Christmas season, essentially meaning he had to build a circus from scratch each year. We are very grateful to Jason Price for his assistance in researching the present work.