The Old Rocking Horse

A painting from the old old house.

This rocking horse has been in my family for generations and is in a beautifully distressed state. It really ought to be restored, but I like the peeling paint and gesso. It's probably about a 100 years old, give or take, although if you believe what the family says, it is old enough to have been made from fragments of the true cross.
I painted it about 17 years ago, when we lived in York. Seth was a baby, and we had finished renovating the house we were in. It took us months to finish it, coming home from work stripping walls and wood. It was hard work but was worth it; the house looked great. As it turned out, we weren't to stay there for long. As Seth learned to walk, and kept falling over in the back yard, we decided that we needed a garden. We wanted another older house, which more or less took York out of our budget. There was also the issue of schools. We eventually found a house in a village that we had never heard of, in the catchment for a soon to be 'outstanding' primary school, and a decent secondary school. When we went along to have a look, which we nearly didn't do, we were sold, and bought Grenouille (the previous lady of the house liked frogs). We quickly  renamed it Hector's House.
15 years (and Archie) later we have moved again, this time into Burnside, Easingwold, with less garden,  a smaller house that again needs work...but with a potentially great studio. The rocking horse is the with us, the painting of it is still with us and, hopefully, we will be saying in this one.
We are also sticking with the name.

The Old Rocking Horse.