SIR ALFRED JAMES MUNNINGS, P.R.A., R.W.S. | SHRIMP IN THE BARN WITH LURCHERS

Sale: Christie's, London, March 6, 1986, lot 173, illustrated (as A boy in a barn with two greyhounds)

Richard Green, London 

Acquired from the above

In Shrimp in the Barn with Lurchers, we find Sir Alfred Munnings favorite model Fountain George Page – known to the artist and most others as “Shrimp” due to his small stature – pensively waiting on a bale of hay with two lurchers. These large hunting hounds, the offspring of a sighthound, such as a Greyhound, and a terrier, herder or scent hound, were prized for their stealth, silence and tenacity while in the field.

When the horse dealer Drake introduced Shrimp to Munnings, the artist commented that he was “an undersized, tough, artful young brigand. He slept under the caravan with the dogs, and had no home of his own, no family ties, no parents he knew… Little did I dream that he would one day become for me an indispensable model, an inspiring rogue, and an annoying villain” (Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, London, 1950, p. 207). Shrimp prominently appeared in a number of Munnings' compositions from 1908 through 1912; based on Shrimp’s boyish glance, the present work can likely be dated to among the first of the series.

We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for contributing to the catalogue entry and confirming the authenticity of this work, which will be included in her Sir Alfred Munnings catalogue raisonné and forthcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Works of Sir Alfred Munnings.