1795-1865

John Frederick Herring, Sr., also known as John Frederick Herring I, was a painter, sign maker and coachman in Victorian England. Herring, Sr. is the painter of the 1848 "Pharoah's Chariot Horses" (archaic spelling "Pharoah"). He amended his signature "SR" (senior) in 1836, with the growing fame of his teenage son John Frederick Herring, Jr. 

In Doncaster, England, Herring was employed as a painter of inn signs and coach insignia on the sides of coaches. Herring spent his spare time painting portraits of horses for inn parlors, and he became known as the "artist coachman" (at the time). Herring's talent was recognized by wealthy customers, and he began painting hunters and racehorses for the gentry. In 1845, Herring was appointed Animal Painter to HRH the Duchess of Kent, followed by a subsequent commission from the ruling Queen Victoria, who remained a patron for the rest of his life. In 1853, Herring moved to rural Kent in the southeast of England and stopped painting horse portraits. He spent the last 12 years of his life at Meopham Park near Tonbridge, where he lived as a country squire. He then broadened his subject matter by painting agricultural scenes and narrative pictures, as well as his better known sporting works of hunting, racing and shooting.

A highly successful and prolific artist, Herring ranks along with Sir Edwin Landseer as one of the more eminent animal painters of mid-nineteenth (19th) century Europe. The paintings of Herring were very popular, and many were engraved, including his 33 winners of the St. Leger and his 21 winners of the Derby. Herring exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1818–1865, at the British Institution from 1830–1865 and at the Society of British Artists in 1836-1852, where Herring became Vice-President in 1842.