Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S.

St James' Galleries, London;
Sothebys, London, 19 June 1974, lot 81, from where purchased by H. Bauman

London, Christie's, Sporting Art in Britain, 'British Sporting Art Trust 25th Anniversary Exhibition', 6 - 22 January 2003. 

Rhoda Koenig, ‘Top Dog’, The World of Interiors, December 1996, illustrated p.66.

Original canvas, small undulation lower right corner. There is a small area of craquelure to the underbelly of the central horse and two small spots of paint loss to the arm of the left hand rider. The surface is dirty and the work should benefit from a light clean, otherwise it is in good condition overall with some strong passages of impasto. Ultra violet light reveals an opaque varnish and a small area of retouching in the sky along the right side of the upper edge. Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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In casual riding dress with distinct red hats, Rosie and Hazel Buxton are depicted on their way to meet the Dunston Harriers, a pack of hounds bought by their father Geoffrey Fowell Buxton in 1897 for his residence at Dunston Hall, Norfolk. The huntsman was Thomas Osborn Springfield, who upon his retirement commissioned Munnings to paint his portrait seated upon his favourite hunter Mangreen (sold Christie's, London, 23 May 2008, lot 73).

In the present work, Munnings' energetic brushstrokes boldly capture this passing moment, consummately evoking the forms of the horses and their riders in a sun-filled landscape. A lover of painting outdoors, Reginald Pound wrote: ‘The call of the sun was one of the strongest forces in his career. No one remembers seeing him willingly at work indoors on a sunlit day’ (Reginald Pound, The Englishman, Heinemann, London 1962, p.47). The present work is testament to Munnings' spontaneous nature and devotion to plein air painting. It was likely executed circa 1908, a year or two after Munnings made a charcoal drawing of Rosie at an easel in 1906 called, In the Barn; A Study of Rose Buxton Sketching a Horse.

We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.