Richard Ansdell (1815-1885 RA): Mylady's Friends, depicting lady in period attire beside a donkey and other farm animals, signed and dated, 60 by 90cm, in a later frame.

[Ansdell was born in Liverpool, and he had a natural talent for art from an early age, and after leaving school worked for a portrait painter in Chatham in Kent, and also spent time as a sign painter in the Netherlands. He first exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1835, becoming a student there the following year. His first exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, was in 1840 and he went on to exhibit pictures every year at the academy until 1885.

In 1855, Andsell was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition for his works, "The Wolf Slyer" and "Taming the Drove". He also won the "Heywood medal" three times for his work at the Manchester Royal Institution. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1861 and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1870.

Many of his works are under the guardianship of Fylde Borough Council, having been donated to the former Lytham St Annes Corporation in the 1930s. A selection of these paintings is periodically exhibited at the Fylde Gallery above Booths supermarket in Lytham where The Herd Lassie is on long-term loan. There are further Ansdell paintings hanging in non-public rooms at Fylde Borough Council Town Hall. The largest public collections of Ansdell's paintings in Britain are in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, the Lytham St Annes Art Collection, and Preston's Harris Museum

In October 2017 a large painting by Ansdell of a Friesian cow was featured on BBC One's Antiques Roadshow and was valued, by art expert Rupert Maas, as being worth between 15,000 and £20,000]