"The Stone Faceder" Signed Horse Print by Snaffles, Circa 1934

This is a signed Charles Johnson Payne color lithographic print, entitled "The Stone Faceder." The print depicts equestrian style riding in the Irish countryside. The bottom margin is signed by the artist, using his known pseudonym - Snaffles. At top right is a remarque of a fox running through brush. Born January 17, 1884 at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Charles Payne was the fourth of a boot-maker’s eight children and from his youth developed a passion for all things military. He tried to enlist in the army to fight in the Boer war, but was rejected on the grounds that he was too young. Eventually, he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery at the age of 18 as a gunner but in 1906 he was forced to leave because of illness. However, his time in the army was influential, as his first recorded works of semi-caricature portrait date from this time. His passion for hunting began at about this time in the Aldershot region. Invalided out of World War One, Payne took a job as a war artist for T