Snaffles Signed Print "The Grand National The Canal Turn" Hand Coloured Blind Stamp 1926

Original hand coloured Snaffles print of the canal turn at the Grand National race at Aintree. Dated 1926, the subtitle of this picture is "A memory, The Old Sergeant and Geoffrey Bennet". Signed in pencil in the lower right corner.

This print is one of the most popular ever produced of the Grand National. The horse jumping the right hand corner is Brights Boy who was third, running in the colours of the famous polo player S Sanford. The same colours having been carried to victory in the 1923 race by Sergeant Murphy (the Sergeant of the remarque below the picture).

This picture has been professionally restored by a Museum conservator and is a great example of snaffles work in what is probably the original frame.

Charles "Snaffles" Johnson Payne (1884–1967) was an English painter best known for his humorous work but also for his outstanding draughtsmanship and depiction of the horse in action which some might say exceeds Lionel Edwards and Munnings. Snaffles specialised in water colours and drawings sold as prints which, at least initially, were hand coloured by the artist and his sisters. His subject matter was invariably military, racing or hunting / equestrian scenes (polo, pig sticking), or some combination of these. Many of his most famous pictures contrast or combine military life with the peacetime pursuits of racing and hunting.