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Lot Essay
The setting for the present work is the Ringland Hills, seven miles west of Norwich. The subjects are two of Munnings's favourite models: the gypsy boy, Shrimp, and Munnings's old Welsh mare.
Munnings's love of the rural Norwich landscape and lifestyle dominates his work from the period 1909-1911, and he painted each summer in the Ringland area as horse dealers, families of gypsies, ponies and lurchers were all easily found at the fairs and public houses throughout the summer months. It was the horse dealer, James Drake, who introduced Munnings to Shrimp, the gypsy boy who slept under Drake's caravan. He was the illegitimate son of a house-maid at Narford Hall near Swaffham, and like Munnings, he preferred horses to people and had run away from home to work with the beasts that he loved.
In 1908, money changed hands between Drake and the artist, and Shrimp became Munnings's full-time model and horse-minder. In return, Munnings paid him a wage and bought him a new suit of clothes, consisting of a tight pair of 'dealer' trousers, a pearl-buttoned Georgian waistcoat, a cloth cap, and a bright red neckerchief. In this garb, he made a handsome model with the grey mare that Drake sold to Munnings in 1910 for twenty pounds, and the pair became the focal point of the artist's languid Norwich paintings.
The theme of this picture - 'idling' - has roots in eighteenth-century Britain but can be seen earlier in Continental paintings. Rest was reward for one's labours and in historic scenes workers were positioned in the foreground while people at rest were in the distance. La Thangue and George Clausen's 'Rural Naturalism' (among others) paved the way for country folk to be viewed in their natural environment as truthfully as possible without romantic embellishment.
In the present work, Shrimp, who is as close to literally being an organic part of the soil due to his homelessness, is viewed here as being amalgamated with the ground he rests in. His form blends into his surroundings and, at first glance, is almost mistaken as part of the landscape. Munnings' reinforces this idea and, using his unwavering practice of painting en plein air, makes Shrimp's figure an integral part of this sun-filled scene.
The scene depicts a quiet moment yet a breeze has caught the mare's tail on which Munnings captures the golden hues. The flickering midday summer sun is intensified by the pandemonium of brushstrokes which in turn fill the picture with movement.
Compositionally, he frames Shrimp's head under the belly of one horse and under the gap in the foliage of the tree. The yellow highlights on the white mare are repeated in the top line of Shrimp's jacket. The pinkish tones of his skin are echoed in the underside of the mare's belly. Munnings layers the design to create spatial perspective. Shrimp's supine form indicates that a hill rises up to a flatter plane, a road. The hedgerows beyond the horses across the road, divide the space and the landscape beyond.
We would like to thank Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her help in preparing the catalogue entry for this work, which will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Sir Alfred Munnings.
Munnings's love of the rural Norwich landscape and lifestyle dominates his work from the period 1909-1911, and he painted each summer in the Ringland area as horse dealers, families of gypsies, ponies and lurchers were all easily found at the fairs and public houses throughout the summer months. It was the horse dealer, James Drake, who introduced Munnings to Shrimp, the gypsy boy who slept under Drake's caravan. He was the illegitimate son of a house-maid at Narford Hall near Swaffham, and like Munnings, he preferred horses to people and had run away from home to work with the beasts that he loved.
In 1908, money changed hands between Drake and the artist, and Shrimp became Munnings's full-time model and horse-minder. In return, Munnings paid him a wage and bought him a new suit of clothes, consisting of a tight pair of 'dealer' trousers, a pearl-buttoned Georgian waistcoat, a cloth cap, and a bright red neckerchief. In this garb, he made a handsome model with the grey mare that Drake sold to Munnings in 1910 for twenty pounds, and the pair became the focal point of the artist's languid Norwich paintings.
The theme of this picture - 'idling' - has roots in eighteenth-century Britain but can be seen earlier in Continental paintings. Rest was reward for one's labours and in historic scenes workers were positioned in the foreground while people at rest were in the distance. La Thangue and George Clausen's 'Rural Naturalism' (among others) paved the way for country folk to be viewed in their natural environment as truthfully as possible without romantic embellishment.
In the present work, Shrimp, who is as close to literally being an organic part of the soil due to his homelessness, is viewed here as being amalgamated with the ground he rests in. His form blends into his surroundings and, at first glance, is almost mistaken as part of the landscape. Munnings' reinforces this idea and, using his unwavering practice of painting en plein air, makes Shrimp's figure an integral part of this sun-filled scene.
The scene depicts a quiet moment yet a breeze has caught the mare's tail on which Munnings captures the golden hues. The flickering midday summer sun is intensified by the pandemonium of brushstrokes which in turn fill the picture with movement.
Compositionally, he frames Shrimp's head under the belly of one horse and under the gap in the foliage of the tree. The yellow highlights on the white mare are repeated in the top line of Shrimp's jacket. The pinkish tones of his skin are echoed in the underside of the mare's belly. Munnings layers the design to create spatial perspective. Shrimp's supine form indicates that a hill rises up to a flatter plane, a road. The hedgerows beyond the horses across the road, divide the space and the landscape beyond.
We would like to thank Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her help in preparing the catalogue entry for this work, which will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Sir Alfred Munnings.