EDWARD SEAGO, R.W.S. | Jonathan on Silvertail

Commissioned by the sitter’s parents Dick and Lettice McCreery and thence by descent to the present owner

London, Portland Gallery, Seago Centenary Exhibition, 2010, not listed in catalogue

Edward Seago, Peace in War, 1944, pp.73-75, illustrated opposite p.73

The board is flat and providing a stable structural support. The paint surface is a little dirty and should benefit from a light clean. There are no signs of craquelure. UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There are no signs of retouching. Areas that appear dark under UV light appear to be the artist's original paint. FRAME The picture is contained in a moulded plaster frame.
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In 1944 when the artist recorded the years of WWII in the book Peace in War, he quoted a letter from Jonathan McCreery's parents; ‘Silvertail has carried all the family in turn. Now it’s Jonathan, whom you will scarcely remember. I wonder if you could escape from your duties to paint him? It would be nice to have with the other one you did of his brothers [Michael and Bobbie]  and though Silvertail has aged since then she deserves to be painted again...’ In those difficult times Seago was pleased to accept the commission from his friends; 'It would be like old days, indeed. Children, ponies, dogs, and grassland, on a summer day. It could be fitted in during leave.’ He recalled painting the portrait; ‘He was just as I had remembered his brothers, with the same silky fair hair. A diminutive figure, clad, as I had hoped, in a yellow jersey and jodhpurs. He went on Silvertail. Yes, she had aged... she ambled quietly away, and we followed her to the meadow. There she pricked up her ears, and trotted briskly about. Jonathan urged her to canter, and Silvertail was young again... child and pony: one of them young, tasting the wine of life, and taking, in that mad scamper, the first sip of a cup that brimmed: the other old, draining the dregs, and finding lost youth in the flavour.’ Shortly before Peace in War was published, Seago received another letter from the McCreery family; ‘You will be sorry to hear that Silvertail is dead. She was a very dear friend, and her loss is a shock to us all.’