.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Breaking with the two hundred year historical tradition of racing compositions featuring a horse galloping across the finishing line, Munnings brought to the portrayal of the racing occasion a revolutionary freshness and brilliance. His focus was directed towards the minutes prior to the start of the race; the preparations for saddling and the dramatic moments as the horses and jockeys jostled for an advantageous starting position. However, Munnings' interests also lay in the direct aftermath of a race, scenes not usually depicted before. ‘The one subject of all that I longed to put on canvas was to be called “After the Race”.’ (Munnings, The Finish, 1952, p. 284.)
‘The subject I wanted to paint was of unsaddling… A winter afternoon with bright sun…many horses are returning after a steeplechase. With extended nostrils and quivering tails they come to a stand; the jockeys, dropping their reins, dismount and unsaddle, and all too soon the steaming horses are led away and the scene is ended. … The principal figure in the scene I wanted to paint was a jockey about to dismount… and the horse was a grey.’ (ibid., pp. 284-5.)
However, as with so many of his racing pictures, Munnings struggled to capture the scene exactly as he saw it in his mind’s eye, creating four different versions of it. Two are in museum collections: one in Southampton Art Gallery, UK; and a larger version (40 ¾ x 63 ¾ in.) forms part of The Paul Mellon Collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond, Virginia. A third variant was sold at Christie’s, New York on 13 October 2021, lot 36 for $846,000 (fig. 1). Whilst the present work was sold as a sketch for After the Race in the 1947 Leicester Galleries exhibition, it may be the smallest version (30 x 40 in.) mentioned by Munnings in The Finish.
While in each of the paintings the grouping on the left, showing the bay horse being unsaddled, ears pricked and neck taut with nervous energy, remains the same, the perspective and the pose of the grey horse and jockey are altered. In the present work the jockey’s head is bent as he prepares to dismount, and there are additional spectators visible on each side of the canvas. Both the horses are set further back in the picture plane and it perhaps relates most closely to the Southampton painting which is the only other to depict a group of figures by the distant finish post.
The backdrop for the painting is the enclosure at Cheltenham. The inauguration of the Gold Cup in 1924 popularised Cheltenham racecourse, regarded as challenging due to its undulating and variable ground. The race is now a major feature of the British sporting calendar, and is regarded as the pinnacle of jump racing. Munnings first attended the Cheltenham March Meeting in 1920 while on his honeymoon with his second wife Violet, staying at the Lygon Arms in nearby Broadway. It was the first of many visits, and the course also became the inspiration for one of Munnings’s most celebrated saddling enclosure paintings, The Saddling Paddock, Cheltenham March Meeting (c. 1947, Private Collection). A study for that painting is also being offered from the same collection (see lot 243).
We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos, Tristram Lewis and the Curatorial staff at The Munnings Museum for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
‘The subject I wanted to paint was of unsaddling… A winter afternoon with bright sun…many horses are returning after a steeplechase. With extended nostrils and quivering tails they come to a stand; the jockeys, dropping their reins, dismount and unsaddle, and all too soon the steaming horses are led away and the scene is ended. … The principal figure in the scene I wanted to paint was a jockey about to dismount… and the horse was a grey.’ (ibid., pp. 284-5.)
However, as with so many of his racing pictures, Munnings struggled to capture the scene exactly as he saw it in his mind’s eye, creating four different versions of it. Two are in museum collections: one in Southampton Art Gallery, UK; and a larger version (40 ¾ x 63 ¾ in.) forms part of The Paul Mellon Collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond, Virginia. A third variant was sold at Christie’s, New York on 13 October 2021, lot 36 for $846,000 (fig. 1). Whilst the present work was sold as a sketch for After the Race in the 1947 Leicester Galleries exhibition, it may be the smallest version (30 x 40 in.) mentioned by Munnings in The Finish.
While in each of the paintings the grouping on the left, showing the bay horse being unsaddled, ears pricked and neck taut with nervous energy, remains the same, the perspective and the pose of the grey horse and jockey are altered. In the present work the jockey’s head is bent as he prepares to dismount, and there are additional spectators visible on each side of the canvas. Both the horses are set further back in the picture plane and it perhaps relates most closely to the Southampton painting which is the only other to depict a group of figures by the distant finish post.
The backdrop for the painting is the enclosure at Cheltenham. The inauguration of the Gold Cup in 1924 popularised Cheltenham racecourse, regarded as challenging due to its undulating and variable ground. The race is now a major feature of the British sporting calendar, and is regarded as the pinnacle of jump racing. Munnings first attended the Cheltenham March Meeting in 1920 while on his honeymoon with his second wife Violet, staying at the Lygon Arms in nearby Broadway. It was the first of many visits, and the course also became the inspiration for one of Munnings’s most celebrated saddling enclosure paintings, The Saddling Paddock, Cheltenham March Meeting (c. 1947, Private Collection). A study for that painting is also being offered from the same collection (see lot 243).
We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos, Tristram Lewis and the Curatorial staff at The Munnings Museum for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.