Siegfried Sassoon’s talent as a sketch artist may not be as well known as his written work. He created watercolour paintings, caricatures, bookplates and other illustrations. Often he painted pictures on the title pages of books to enhance them. He sketched caricatures of close friends, and also of people he liked very much less!

Presented here are a few examples of the type of work he created, these pictures are not in my possession. They come mainly from auction catalogues but each one is acknowledged.

Below: Six pen and watercolour sketches all from the Christies, Library of Lady Ottoline Morrell sale in November 2006

The following sketches are from the Sotheby’s catalogue for their auction of English Literature and History, held in July 1991. The sketches all feature members of the Sitwell family, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell, who were (from time to time) good friends of Sassoon.

Below: Six small mongramed bookplates drawn by Sassoon on books he once owned and auctioned by Sotheby’s in July 1991

The following items are held by the University of Texas at Austin, as part of their large Siegfried Sassoon collection. These pictures were published in the university’s volume ‘Siegfried Sassoon: A Memorial Exhibition.’

The ‘Huntsman’

While on holiday in the south of France this year (September 2017), I was walking through an antiques market in Nice, when I spotted this rather scruffy picture lying on the ground along with a number of other paintings and prints that the vendor had for sale. At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing, I thought I was looking at a painting by Siegfried Sassoon that had been sold at a Christie’s auction in 2006, part of the estate of the late Lady Ottoline Morrell (see top of page).

On closer inspection the picture above proved to be a print, fixed on a larger buff coloured mount. On the mount below the picture was printed:

‘Hunting Types

A Pytchley Double Oxer’

In small letters on the left below the picture was printed ‘Painted by Cecil Aldin.’ On the right was printed ‘’Published by Richard Wyman & Co, Ltd, 16 Bedford Street, Strand, London, W.C. 2.’ On the bottom right hand corner of the print the artist had signed it ‘Cecil.’ I don't think there is any doubt that the original of this picture was painted by the British artist and illustrator Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin 1879-1935. I immediately bought the picture for thirty Euros without haggling to the surprise of the seller.

I now had a problem as there was no way I was going to get this glazed picture frame in my luggage and safely home by air. I took it back to our holiday apartment and removed the print from the frame. In the back of the frame acting as packing was a copy of the the French newspaper ‘Le Patriote de Nice et du Sud-Est,’ dated 27 September 1958. I now knew the frame was not contemporary with the print so I threw it away and was able to get the print safely tucked into my luggage with no risk of smashed glass creating havoc on the way home.

How ironic that this print depicting the privileged British upper class was framed and kept in Nice by a person who we can only assume was a communist; and how fortunate that an Englishman who is fascinated by Siegfried Sassoon and publishes a web site happened to be walking through a town in France and almost literally stumbled on this connection with Sassoon?

Christie’s are wrong, this is not a picture of Sassoon on Cockbird. I can't see any mention in Sassoon’s books or diaries of him riding with the Pytchley, although the National Horse Brass Society claim, “The young poet Siegfried Sassoon quartered his horse [at Lamport Hall] at the end of a hunt in the spring of 1914...which is in the heart of Pytchley country.” I don’t believe Cecil Aldin would have painted a picture of him anyway, I think Sassoon copied Aldin’s print of a generic huntsman while staying at Ottline Morrell’s mansion which he often did. By the way, an oxer is a hedge with a guardrail running along one side at a distance of two or three feet and often a ditch along the other side to prevent cattle from passing through it. A double oxer has a guardrail on each side.

I have the results of that Christie’s auction from November 2006. It appears the Sassoon painting went unsold. I wonder where it is now?