‘Cruel To Be Kind’ - A Scene From The Second Afghan War, 1878-80
Overall: 58.8cm (23in) x 73.5cm (29in) Oil on canvas. A British cavalry officer on the North West Frontier dressed in greatcoat and pillbox cap in a snowy landscape levels his revolver at his injured charger in an act of mercy, watched by a sowar carrying his saddle, while a mounted trooper looks out on a gun team negotiating a nullah to the left. After Richard Caton Woodville (1856-1927). Signed lower left 'H. Whitehead'. Canvas: 38.5cm (15.2in) x 54cm (21in). Caton Woodville’s original work 'Cruel to be Kind’ (1882) was shown at the Fine Arts Society, Bond Street in 1882 in an exhibition of animal paintings organised by the proprietors of The Graphic magazine. The Graphic’s art critic classed it as amongst the best of nearly eighty works on show. However the critic described the principal figure as ‘a Russian soldier giving the coup de grace to his disabled horse’. Caton Woodville’s original is now in the National Army Museum (Accession number NAM. 1960-05-50). The main protagonist is of course a British cavalry officer on the North-West frontier confronting the dilemma of acting in the best interests of his injured charger by putting it out of its misery. The NAM comments on ‘Cruel to be Kind’ as follows, ’In the harsh winter conditions on the North West Frontier of India, there was no means of treating a sick or wounded horse. To save it from a lingering and painful death, the officer has to resort to shooting his own mount. It is a moment full of pathos. As he prepares to fire, the injured animal raises its head to look at its master. It seems to know what he is going to do. To create this pose, the artist has elongated the horse’s neck and enlarged its head, but the unusual viewpoint helps to disguise these strange proportions. The subject was meant to be seen as heroic as well as tragic, to show that fulfilling duty can sometimes be difficult…’ Harold Whitehead (fl. 1890-1910) was primarily a maritime artist. He specialised in detailed ship portraits and worked in both watercolour and oil. His best known work is Captain’s Robert Falcon’s Scott’s RRS Discovery in winter quarters in McMurdo Sound.