Charles Turner after Philip Reinagle.

Francis Noel Clarke Mundy Esq and his Grandson, William Mundy of Markeaton near Derby.

23.5 x 21.5 inches

It is rare to find such a touching and intimate composition between grandfather and grandson. Francis Mundy (1739-1815) was an English landowner and magistrate who is best remembered for his poetry. In this charming scene we witness him in mutual study with his grandson, William. Upon the table and deliberately facing the viewer is a copy of his most famous poem, The Fall of Needwood. Needwood was a large, ancient forest in Staffordshire considered by many to be the finest in England. Towards the end of the C18th the decision was made to enclose the forest, divide it up and begin a process of deforestation. Mundy, whose estate at Markeaton in nearby Derbyshire, was appalled at its loss and wrote his emotive poem in protest of its destruction. In many ways he was a harbinger of the environmental campaigns that now dominate our own political agenda.