English School Early 20th Century

English School Early 20th Century

Portrait of Siegfried Sassoon's hunter, 'Cockbird'

Oil on canvas

33 x 40.6cm

Provenance:

Siegfried Sassoon;

And by family descent

Siegfried Sassoon bought Cockbird in 1910 and rode him in eleven point-to-points before the First World War. In 'Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man' he devotes a whole chapter to winning 'The Colonel's Cup', and writes, 'As for Cockbird, no words could ever express what we felt about him. He had become the equine equivalent of Divinity'.

When war broke out, Sassoon initially joined the Sussex Yeomanry and gave up the horse to an officer, as Cockbird could not manage a trooper's heavy equipment.