Career

Ricketts began his theatrical career with Hughes Royal Circus in London in the 1780s, and came over from England in 1792 to establish his first circus in Philadelphia. He built a circus building in Philadelphia in the fall of 1792 in which he conducted a riding school. After training a group of Pennsylvania horses, on April 3, 1793 he gave America"s first complete circus performance, which began a series of exhibitions two and three times a week.

Ricketts is identified as the subject of an unfinished portrait of ca.

1795-1799 by Gilbert Stuart. The painting"s current provenance includes the sitter"s brother, Francis Ricketts.

lieutenant was later owned by Peter Grain and George Washington Riggs. In 1879, George C. Mason published The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart, in which he described the painting as "an unfinished picture, which, there is strong reason for believing, was painted by Stuart" and identified the subject as Breschard, the Circus Rider.

lieutenant was under this title that the painting was displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1880.

However, in 1970 the National Gallery of Art changed the identification from "Breschard" " to "Ricketts".