There are 34 paintings by 24 different artists hanging on the walls of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. This is the largest of three works by Alfred Munnings in the Dining Room, and is installed above the mantelpiece.

Munnings, who had painted cavalry scenes during the First World War, was best known for his depictions of horses and cattle. He had already collaborated with Edwin Lutyens, the chief architect of the Dolls’ House project, producing in 1920 an equestrian statue in honour of military officer Edward Horner.

This little composition is typical of Munnings’s post-war aristocratic equestrian portraits. It depicts the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), in a red hunting jacket and white breeches, riding the horse Forest Witch through a wooded landscape. A gnarled oak tree frames the composition on the right.

In The Book of the Queen's Dolls' House (1924), art historian Lionel Cust gets into the spirit of the enterprise and imagines miniature dinner guests discussing this painting, debating whether it presents a good likeness of ‘our sporting young Prince Charming’.