BILLY AND TOMMY.

Images: www.ebay.co.uk.

The work is visible in a photograph of Annie’s 1923 exhibition in Manchester, between Cupid and Psyche and The Southing of the Sun.

Described in The Guardian, 7 Jul 1923: “… the portrait of a boy with a pony (13), – it is rarely indeed, except in the work of the Italian masters of the Cinqueceuto [the 1500s], that we find so free and expression of movement combined with a full sense of weight and solid form. And in the column at the right of this picture and the great stretch of sky in the background we have again the Italian spaciousness.”

The frame around the top picture (taken from Montagna Mia) has been artificially added to give an impression of how the picture would have looked when originally hung. The picture regularly appears on commercial art reproduction web sites.

• Media: oil on canvas (assumed).
• Dimensions: 1296 x 2273 mm (2.95 m²), Christie’s 1992.
• History: signed and dated 1917; exhibited 1923 Manchester; auctioned Christie’s, London, 12 Jun 1992, “Init. Dated lower left,”; regularly appears as purchasable print on commercial web sites.
• Location: unknown.

SKETCH FOR BILLY AND TOMMY.

Image: Royal Academy Illustrated, 1917.

• Media: oil on canvas (assumed).
• Dimensions: ?.
• History: 1917 (by obvious similarity to painting above); exhibited Royal Academy, 1932.
• Location: unknown.