‘Early one morning I saw the full-dress State rehearsal – a sight for the gods in the absence of the public. Black horses, burnished steel cuirasses, plumed helmets and swords, glittering in the morning sun; the bright light, with the strains of martial music glorified the pompous ceremony – the blazonry colour; and beyond all, the march up the Mall to the Palace of the massed bands of the Life and Horse Guards, on grey horses, leading the way with music which smote the soul.’
Presentation Of New Standards (1927)
The present picture is a smaller version of a painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1930, The New Standards at the Presentation of Standards to the Household Cavalry by H.M. King George V, June 1927 measuring 35 by 42 inches (private collection). It was accompanied by another composition of the same event The Presentation of New Standards to the Regiments of the Household Cavalry by H.M. the King, Horse Guards Parade, June 24th 1927 (Collection of The Household Cavalry).
COLLECTION OF THE HOUSEHOLD CAVALRY
The ceremony of The Presentation of Standards has been held since 1748 and has a similar purpose to Trooping the Colour during the Sovereign’s Birthday Parade. It is a private event in which the King or Queen in their role as Colonel-in-Chief, present a standard to the Household Division - the five regiments of Foot Guards (Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards) and two cavalry regiments (the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals). It is only the Household Cavalry that carry standards – other cavalry regiments carry guidons whilst the regiments of Foot Guards carry colours. The standard is paraded (trooped) along the ranks in an act that symbolises the regiments’ recognition that this will be the flag they rally to during battle. In the present composition the Life Guards, identifiable by their red tunics and white helmet plumes, are on the left in the foreground. The Royal Horse Guards, with their red plumes and blue tunics (hence their moniker the Blues) are arranged in a line on the right in the background. On 24 June 1927 the ceremony took place for the first time on Horse Guards Parade at Whitehall part of which is presumably the building in the present picture which is less prominent in the exhibited painting.
The excitement of painting the series of pictures of the Presentation of Standards in 1927 was recalled over twenty years later by Munnings in the short but enlightening chapter of his second autobiography entitled ‘Presentation of the Standards’;
‘Who would not feel exalted, seeing rows of gold-coated bandsmen playing a stirring march as they passed by their grey steeds, some white, almost white, others dappled-grey; their arching necks, moved by the massed music around them. Seemingly conscious of the glory and display? I recall my emotions now as I try to write of it – of the grand finale, when the bands, with the seventy grey horses, formed into a mass of grey, scarlet and gold in front of the tall Palace gates, with the long, grey stone façade of the Palace in the background. Grey horses, shining bits, gorgeous gold bandsmen playing on polished brass trumpets and trombones to the beat of the drums, the drummers on their skewbald horses, a dazzling group in front of the rest. Sunlight flashing on brass, burnished steel and gold-braided coats; and always the martial sounds of march music as the regiments rode past the bands playing them on.’
Several studies of the individual figures and horses in the two exhibition paintings were made at the Albany Street barracks, where Munnings was given every assistance that he could have wished for. The finished larger paintings were probably painted at his Glebe Street studio over a period of two years between 1927 and 1929. The present picture however appears to have been painted on the spot on that bright May morning in 1927 when Munnings witnessed the dress rehearsal for the ceremony. Although the composition was dictated by the event itself Munnings was able to combine a truthful rendering of a historical scene with a balanced and dramatic artistic expression of colour light and movement.
THE LIFE GUARD’S SERVING OFFICERS’ TRUST
The central figure riding through the composition on an elegant black horse, was the Corporal of the Horse, Regimental Corporal Major J.A. Sykes who started in his post in February 1927. He is carrying the Sovereign’s Standard of the Life Guards. Another painting of the Corporal of the Horse was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1932 (Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven). The skewbald horse on the right, partly obscured in the present picture but placed at more of a distance in the larger painting, was called Paddy, the subject of a popular exhibit at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1922, The Drummer of his Majesty’s First Life Guards (The Life Guards Serving Officers’ Trust and a smaller version at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire). The decision to move Paddy forward in the scene and other small differences in composition shows that Munnings altered his initial conception. The finished, exhibited picture arguably lacks the spontaneity that is present in this picture painted on the spot among the music and regalia of the ceremony itself with the thunder of hooves and drums and the glimmer of highly-polished metal and glossy flanks reflecting the morning sun.