A fine sporting horse portrait of a chestnut hunter called Sunshine in a stable by Alfred Moginie Bryant. The mare is depicted facing right with her head slightly turned towards the viewer to reveal a wide white stripe running down her face. Her hind leg bears a distinctive white sock. Sunshine was a chestnut mare foaled in 1887, by Fetterlock. She was owned by Mr Charles Matthew Prior of Adstock Manor, Winslow in Buckinghamshire. He most likely commissioned the portrait to commemorate the horse in some way, perhaps with a view to selling her on.

Alfred Moginie Bryant was born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire in 1855, the son of Charles Bryant and Susan Moginie His father was a silk merchant and draper who ran a successful business in Huntingdon High Street employing several staff. Although his other brothers went on to work for the family business, Alfred’s talent for art led him in a different direction. Given his father’s success in business, it is highly likely that Bryant received artistic tuition and may well have attended art school.

By the 1880’s he had moved to London and was working as a full time artist. Although it is not known if he was christened with the name Moginie, he began signing his works ‘A M Bryant’ or ‘A Moginie Bryant’ from the start of his career. He also found work as a book illustrator producing drawings for books including the Tourist Guide to the Continent, published in 1880. He is known to have travelled around the country working on commissions and spent time in Leamington Spa and Eastbourne where he met his future wife Mary Bennett. The couple married in 1904 and lived at Bradley House, 20 Lushington Road in Eastbourne.

By 1921, Bryant had moved back to London where he resided at 21 Stanley Gardens, Hampstead. During this period of his life he continued to work on commissions but was also employed by the Anglo Saxon Petroleum Co Ltd, later Shell Petroleum, at their headquarters at St Helen’s Court, Leadenhall Street in London, providing drawings and marketing illustrations. He remained in Hampstead until his death on 27 January, 1935.

© Benton Fine Art