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Lot Essay
This grand, ambitious canvas by Sir Alfred Munnings is the epitome of style and glamour. Harking back to a bygone era it shows an elegantly dressed woman sitting side-saddle on her stylish grey hunter surrounded by the red coats of dozens of men clamoring to be introduced to the glamorous Amazon. Superficially at least this is the story, expertly executed by the deft brushstrokes of an artist who had reached maturity and mastered his art. However, behind this lie a number of different threads that bring together everything Munnings was about.
According to a label in Munnings’s handwriting on the stretcher the picture began life as a smaller canvas and as a working study of H.R.H. The Princess Royal, only daughter of George V, and aunt to the late queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In 1922 H.R.H. The Princess Royal had married Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, heir to one of Britain’s great estates. Munnings was commissioned to paint three paintings over the next decade for Harewood House in Yorkshire, including H.R.H. the Princess Royal on ‘Portumna’ and the Earl of Harewood, Master of the Bramham Moor Hunt, on 'Tommy' which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1930. It is to this painting that the label alludes. Seemingly Munnings was dissatisfied with the work that he had begun on the figure of Princess Mary on her grey, Portumna, and cast the original canvas aside to begin work on a larger piece that would become the finished painting.
This act was entirely characteristic of the artist’s working process, as was his decision to return to the picture and reline and enlarge the canvas to its present size. Munnings’s memory on dates is often somewhat hazy: on the label he claims to have restarted the painting in 1946, but the two studies that accompany this work are dated 1952. The third study, shown in the photograph of Munnings’s studio, remains at Castle House, Dedham, now The Munnings Museum. Nevertheless, at some stage after the Second World War, Munnings picked up the canvas again and returned to work.
By then Munnings had an established artistic practice having painted commissions for so many members of the British aristocracy and other leading lights of society. He was knighted in 1944, the year that he became President of the Royal Academy, a post which he held for the next five years. This had brought him a level of relative comfort and stature, and he was increasingly able to paint subjects that caught his interest.
A great hunting enthusiast Munnings was an avid reader of the satirical novels of Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864). Surtees was a keen horseman, and an even keener observer of character, who captured the foibles and mannerisms of the hunt and those connected to it. Munnings devoted several pages of his memoirs to his love of Surtees: ‘From the day when I opened the pages of Surtees, the horse-and-rider side of me took on an entirely new and lively growth. Books open our eyes – even more than pictures – to the surrounding world…’ (A. J. Munnings, The Finish, London, 1952, p. 314.)
It was Surtees and his humorous observation of the world around him that inspired Munnings to paint Who’s the Lady? as well as his other conversation pieces Why weren’t you out yesterday? (Private collection) and Two Busvines and a Cutaway (Private collection). While there appeared to be general speculation as to who the lady in the present work actually was when it was first shown at the Academy in 1955, Munnings’s label on the reverse names her as Lucy Glitters. Lucy was a beautiful young woman who featured in Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, and who Mr. Sponge eventually married. She is surrounded by gallant members of the ‘Nonsuch’ or ‘None such’ Hunt, another delightful play on words, all jostling for her attention.
Munnings would have been amused to learn that the speculation as to who the lady really was continued long after his death in 1959. His widow Violet, Lady Munnings claimed that she had been the model for the huntswoman, and lamented that she could not afford to buy the picture back for the collection at Castle House (Yorkshire Evening Post, 19 September 1963). Previous catalogue entries have listed the subject as H.R.H. The Princess Royal surrounded by members of the Nonsuch Hunt. Now it appears that Who’s the Lady? is in fact a complex blend of sitters and subject: a portrait; a hunting scene; a conversation piece; and a satire all brought together by a skilled artist with a love of horses and a wry sense of humor.
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.
According to a label in Munnings’s handwriting on the stretcher the picture began life as a smaller canvas and as a working study of H.R.H. The Princess Royal, only daughter of George V, and aunt to the late queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In 1922 H.R.H. The Princess Royal had married Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, heir to one of Britain’s great estates. Munnings was commissioned to paint three paintings over the next decade for Harewood House in Yorkshire, including H.R.H. the Princess Royal on ‘Portumna’ and the Earl of Harewood, Master of the Bramham Moor Hunt, on 'Tommy' which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1930. It is to this painting that the label alludes. Seemingly Munnings was dissatisfied with the work that he had begun on the figure of Princess Mary on her grey, Portumna, and cast the original canvas aside to begin work on a larger piece that would become the finished painting.
This act was entirely characteristic of the artist’s working process, as was his decision to return to the picture and reline and enlarge the canvas to its present size. Munnings’s memory on dates is often somewhat hazy: on the label he claims to have restarted the painting in 1946, but the two studies that accompany this work are dated 1952. The third study, shown in the photograph of Munnings’s studio, remains at Castle House, Dedham, now The Munnings Museum. Nevertheless, at some stage after the Second World War, Munnings picked up the canvas again and returned to work.
By then Munnings had an established artistic practice having painted commissions for so many members of the British aristocracy and other leading lights of society. He was knighted in 1944, the year that he became President of the Royal Academy, a post which he held for the next five years. This had brought him a level of relative comfort and stature, and he was increasingly able to paint subjects that caught his interest.
A great hunting enthusiast Munnings was an avid reader of the satirical novels of Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864). Surtees was a keen horseman, and an even keener observer of character, who captured the foibles and mannerisms of the hunt and those connected to it. Munnings devoted several pages of his memoirs to his love of Surtees: ‘From the day when I opened the pages of Surtees, the horse-and-rider side of me took on an entirely new and lively growth. Books open our eyes – even more than pictures – to the surrounding world…’ (A. J. Munnings, The Finish, London, 1952, p. 314.)
It was Surtees and his humorous observation of the world around him that inspired Munnings to paint Who’s the Lady? as well as his other conversation pieces Why weren’t you out yesterday? (Private collection) and Two Busvines and a Cutaway (Private collection). While there appeared to be general speculation as to who the lady in the present work actually was when it was first shown at the Academy in 1955, Munnings’s label on the reverse names her as Lucy Glitters. Lucy was a beautiful young woman who featured in Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, and who Mr. Sponge eventually married. She is surrounded by gallant members of the ‘Nonsuch’ or ‘None such’ Hunt, another delightful play on words, all jostling for her attention.
Munnings would have been amused to learn that the speculation as to who the lady really was continued long after his death in 1959. His widow Violet, Lady Munnings claimed that she had been the model for the huntswoman, and lamented that she could not afford to buy the picture back for the collection at Castle House (Yorkshire Evening Post, 19 September 1963). Previous catalogue entries have listed the subject as H.R.H. The Princess Royal surrounded by members of the Nonsuch Hunt. Now it appears that Who’s the Lady? is in fact a complex blend of sitters and subject: a portrait; a hunting scene; a conversation piece; and a satire all brought together by a skilled artist with a love of horses and a wry sense of humor.
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.