Brighton Front after Cecil Aldin
- Watercolor & ink
- 4.25 x 7.25 in
- Charles Johnson Payne
-
Sold
$10,000. - 15,000. (Set)
Provenance:
This is a watercolour signed and dated 1913 when Snaffles was living at Oakham in the Cottesmore Country, It is of a lady in a lightweight dog cart driving a hackney type pony with four white points. Clearly the image is based on Cecil Aldin's print, "Brighton Front" which was of his wife Rita, with her bulldog looking around her legs.
I am certain that this is of a lady actually out hunting and I am also certain that I have seen a photograph of the person involved, but where or when I have no idea. To me it looks like the dog cart has been specially made to go across country, and you will notice that the lady is carrying a hunting crop and not a driving whip. The whole effect is extremely smart and I know that there was around that time, a famous lady who followed in a dog cart. In many ways the style is reminiscent of Snaffles' drawing of his sister which was used as the frontispiece in my book "Charles Johnson Payne - His Life and Works". There are few snaffles drawings of driving and the only one which involves colour and which I can think of is used as a remarque in the print "The Staff College Drag".
I first purchased this watercolor in about 1980. It promptly went into a major collection of English drawings whose owner died late last year when I purchased it back from the owner's son. I told Alan about it at Newmarket before he contacted you.
- Collections: Saratoga 2022