As in so many of Munnings' landscape paintings, this Yorkshire study shows a freedom of expression that allows an insight into the artist’s working practices and the joy that painting the countryside gave him. The reverse of the board is covered in splodges of paint and a half-finished outline of a horse, common features of his board sketches where the artist was working at speed and in situ rather than in the studio. Whilst it is perhaps more common to find his Exmoor or East Anglian landscapes on the market, the present work was painted in Yorkshire when Munnings was working on his first commission from Henry Lascelles, 6^th Earl of Harewood, The Bramham Moor Hounds at Weeton Whin (sold in these Rooms, 11 July 2019, lot 53, for £2,171,250).
The landscape behind the huntsmen in the finished painting includes the prominent feature of Almscliff Crag and was developed from the sketches, such as this, that Munnings painted near the house of Major Eric Fawkes, a descendant of Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall, a major patron of Joseph Mallord William Turner. Turner, like Munnings, had been working for the Lascelles family who had introduced him to Walter Fawkes. ‘Lord Harewood motored me over to Major Eric Fawkes of Ormskirk Hall so that I could see the country for the background…Major Fawkes – now dead – was the possessor of pictures by Turner, many of which the artist had painted there.’ (A.J. Munnings, The Second Burst, London, 1951, p. 226).
The Bramham Moor Hounds at Weeton Whin was shown at the Royal Academy in 1928, and its favourable reception prompted Munnings to include this charming landscape study in his exhibition at Norwich Castle later that summer in the hope of finding a buyer. The painting was eventually purchased by Prince George, Duke of Kent, the younger brother of H.R.H. The Princess Royal, who had married the then Viscount Lascelles in 1922, and given to his sister for Christmas in 1933.
We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos, the Curatorial staff at The Munnings Museum and Tristram Lewis for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.