Bonhams Sporting Sale 21 June

A fine selection of works by the famous sporting and military artist, Snaffles, is for sale at Bonhams Sporting Sale in Edinburgh on 21 June.

Snaffles – real name Charles Johnson Payne – was born in 1884.  After a spell as a Gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery, he left the army to concentrate on art and by the outbreak of the First World War had become a regular contributor to the leading periodicals of the day.  Snaffles served in the Royal Naval Air Service in WWI and in the Second World War put his drawing skills to good use as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve designing camouflage for ships at sea.

Military life and hunting were preoccupations throughout Snaffles long life –he died in 1967 – and the Sporting Sale features one of his most famous images, the 1940 print The Season (£500-600) where these two interests come together.   The image shows an exchange of salutes between a mounted Master of the Hunt surrounded by an inquisitive pack of hounds and a Tank Commander amid his stationary vehicles.

The work of Rudyard Kipling was another life-long love. He shared the poet’s sympathies with the common fighting man as seen in the 1911 watercolour and pencil depiction of a British soldier on horseback during the Boer War.  The inscription – “I don’t know whose dam column I’m in – Nor where we’re trekkin’, nor why” – is from Kipling’s 1901 poem M.I. (Mounted Infantry of the Line).  The Snaffles work is known as The Ikonas, the nickname of the M.I. and is estimated at £1,000-1,500.

In all there are 19 works by Snaffles in the sale ranging in price from £150 -200 to £2,000-3,000.

The Sporting Sale is an annual auction of all things to do with sporting life and features paintings, prints, fishing equipment and books among other collectible objects.