Painted when Munnings and his wife Violet lived in Withypool, Exmoor, during the Second World War, because their house in Dedham, Castle Househad been requisitioned by the army, the present work is a study for the left-hand side of The Second Set (sold Sotheby's, New York, 22 November 2016, lot 60).
The horses depicted are probably Munnings’ own bay hunters, Anarchist and Cherrybounce, with the chestnut Rufus missing from this particular composition. The horses featured regularly in his works from the 1940s and Munnings heralds them as old friends and companions, describing Anarchist as ‘a big fine old 16.2—such a sort— beautifully fit and clipped’ (A.J. Munnings, The Finish, London, 1952, p. 71). The mare Cherrybounce, or Cherry for short, was bred by Munnings and named after a horse in Robert Surtees’ Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour (1853), one of the comic novels Munnings loved so much. Both horses feature in a number of works from this period including Winter Exercise, shown at the Leicester Galleries in 1947, and Morning Exercise (Private Collection).
Shown saddled up on an autumnal morning, the two horses are waiting for their riders to return from their first ride of the morning to take the second set of horses out for their exercise. The groom is probably one of the three Delaney boys, local lads taken under Munnings’ wing during the 1940s who modelled for him regularly during his Withypool years.
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.