Sale: Sotheby's, London, March 13, 1974, lot 59
Richard Green, London
Acquired from the above circa 1974

Probably, London, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, 1911, no. 303
Brandywine Conservancy and River Museum, Alfred J. Munnings from Regional Collections, June 7 - September 1, 2008 (as Leaders Pulling the Queen's Carriage)
Saratoga Springs, National Museum of Racing, The Mastery of Munnings, July 8-September 4, 2000, pp. 26-27, illustrated p. 27

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work seems to be in lovely condition. It is well presented. There seems to have been no weakening to the paper or the paint layer. There is very slight acidification to the paper around the mane of the horse and above his nose. There are possibly a few tiny brown spots in the center of the sky that may not be original. It is recommended that the work be hung in its current condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In Munnings’ autobiography he fondly recalls a formative childhood memory that is echoed in The Leaders: “A distinct scene from my earliest days, which for some strange reason remains clear and more unclouded than others, is my Aunt Rosa’s wedding, with grey horses and white rosettes. I see them trotting up to Walsham Hall, the old farmhouse where my grandmother lived … They were, no doubt, quite ordinary greys, but let me cling to my dream of beauty” (Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, Bungay Suffolk, 1950, p. 16).

These high-stepping horses made a lasting impression on the artist, and he painted a number of wedding postilions and other carriage scenes, such as the present work, around 1910 – 1911. In 1925, Munnings was commissioned by Queen Mary to paint the ultimate carriage event – the elaborate pageantry of the Royal Ascot Procession (Lorian Peralta-Ramos, The Mastery of Munnings, Saratoga, 2000, p.23).

The Leaders is a dynamic and energetic composition rendered in Munnings’ signature style of quick, confident brushwork. The artist had been elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in 1899 and generally submitted five works per year until 1916, the maximum number of submissions allowed, and the present work was likely one of them. He submitted fewer works when he was an associate member from 1921 until 1934, his eventual resignation. Watercolor allowed Munnings to express the spontaneity and verve of a scene en plein air. The Leaders certainly demonstrates that he was particularly skilled at using this unforgiving medium, as he captured the strength of forward momentum of the two horses with their legs blurred to effectively describe movement. Here,ꩲ instead of contrasting his subject against a dense background, he has painted them with the same fluidity as the overcast sky.