Lot Essay
It was Laura Knight's friend, Sir Alfred Munnings who suggested that she paint the crowds of racegoers at Epsom after Carmo's Circus was forced to close. She became a frequent visitor to the course, travelling there with her friend Ally Bert in a Rolls Royce belonging to Mr. Sully, in which she erected her easel and painted the races and the crowds. The artist befriended an elderly gypsy woman, known as 'Granny Smith', at the races where the gypsies would come to tell fortunes for the racegoers. The portraits of the gypsies in their elaborate and colourful costumes painted at Epsom, and at the gypsy camp at Iver Heath, are amongst the artist's most oustanding works. (see C. Fox, Dame Laura Knight, Oxford, 1988, p.85).