{"id":499,"date":"2015-06-27T22:01:42","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overbrookpublishing.com\/BackStory\/?p=499"},"modified":"2015-06-27T22:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:01:42","slug":"wallace-wilson-nall-iii-at-morven-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wallace-wilson-nall-iii-at-morven-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallace Wilson Nall, III at Morven Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

An afternoon trip to the Morven Park Museum of Hounds and Hunting in historic Leesburg, Virginia stepped us through the region’s rich history in fox hunting and beyond. The experience reminded me of many scenes and parallel events in House Key<\/em>, particularly the impact of the Civil War on\u00a0the Piedmont area. The Morven Manor house, a massive Greek Revival structure that evolved from\u00a0a 1780 fieldstone farmhouse, has the Catoctin Ridge for\u00a0a backdrop, so reminiscent of the MacRae’s Wildcat Mountain and Greigston Manor. Also expanded through\u00a0the\u00a0generations, Morven Manor\u00a0was extensively remodeled in the twentieth century.\u00a0We were there\u00a0to see the Wallace Wilson Nall, III painting exhibit of horses and hounds,\u00a0a display of about 50 images. The exhibit spanned two rooms in the Morven mansion and several decades of paintings, most on loan from private collections in the area.<\/p>\n

Nall was prolific and popular with the local hunt clubs, whose masters of fox hounds are often depicted with remarkable likeness, according to my friend and Whipper-in who had met many of them as a youngster. It was as much fun studying the paintings as it was observing her reactions as she exclaimed, “That’s So-and-so, and that’s just how I remember his expression!” Then she’d reminisce\u00a0about their feats and their horses, many of whom she remembered, as well.<\/p>\n

MiddleBurg Life<\/a> magazine describes Nall as a California native, a World War II veteran of the Army First\u00a0Calvary (Texas) and a lifelong horseman. His true\u00a0gift emerged when he moved to Middleburg in the 1970’s and executed a large body of commissioned work until he passed away at 81 in 2003. Valued for his ability\u00a0to capture the elegance and gentility of equestrian\u00a0sport through the gesture and expression of its subjects, his work was featured several times on the covers\u00a0of Chronicle of the Horse<\/a> throughout the years. One portrait, in particular, of Harcourt Lees, a former Warrenton Hunt Club MFH, depict\u00a0horse and master sharing the same benevolently thoughtful gaze toward something just over the viewer’s shoulder. It captures that sense of peaceful partnership, mutual understanding and harmony we all strive to achieve with our horses. To this end, Nall’s scenes depict the Piedmont’s recognizable countryside as idyllic backdrops, sometimes merely suggested with\u00a0the\u00a0abandon of\u00a0broad strokes in sharp\u00a0contrast to the detailed precision that highlights the subjects. Nall’s smaller portraits of hounds are active and playful, but each one reflects the distinct personality of the hound, something\u00a0easy to overlook in\u00a0a swirling pack of black and brown spots and wagging tails.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0separate Hall of Fame room adjacent to the exhibit is dedicated to honoring masters and huntsmen from the various hunts in the area\u00a0where their portraits and memorabilia are tastefully and lovingly displayed. In yet another room by the entrance there are more photographs and cases of trophies, hunt attire, and even club\u00a0buttons, including the dies from which they were cast.\u00a0The cow horn John Singleton Mosby\u00a0used when he rode with his\u00a0Raiders during the Civil War was on display, as well. It was later used to hunt the Middleburg Hounds.<\/p>\n

Since we were the only visitors at the time, we also got a personal tour of the mansion from\u00a0a very knowledgeable guide. Keeping his narrative in the active present tense, he immediately drew us in. Our guide, an “Americanist” scholar,\u00a0was as passionate about the history of the place and its\u00a0furnishings as he was about its people and the impact they had not just on local society, economy and politics, but at a national level, as well. The house has an eclectic collection of furnishings\u00a0from the former owners’ extensive trips abroad. My attention immediately went to the sensitively rendered portrait of\u00a0Marguerite Inman Davis (1907) by F. Percy Wild, a British painter (1859-1963), prominently displayed in the main parlor. It was she and her husband, Westmoreland Davis, an attorney, who moved from New York, spurring the advent of agricultural progressiveness in Virginia. Davis\u00a0bought his own publication, Southern Planter, which served as a platform to lobby for the reforms he\u00a0envisioned. Davis promoted agricultural improvements beyond the Piedmont when he\u00a0became President of the Virginia State Farmers Institute from 1909-1916 and later, Governor of Virginia from 1918-1922.<\/p>\n

We left the mansion and walked through the old stables to visit the Winmill Carriage House which contains 40 horse-drawn carriages, including everything from a steam pumper wagon to a hearse. Having written about several carriages in House Key<\/em>, I was interested to find their respective models and was not disappointed. Photographs were not permitted in the manor, but allowed in the Carriage House. Nonetheless, the carriages, though neatly parked next to one another could not be photographed in their entirety since there were so many of them packed in the available space.<\/p>\n

We left as crews were preparing for a\u00a0weekend\u00a0event. Morven Park hosts weddings and functions and is in the process of renovating its equestrian center to accommodate several new outdoor arenas, an indoor stadium, viewer pavilions and parking, and barn complex.<\/p>\n

Both the museum<\/a> and Morven\u00a0Park<\/a>\u00a0warrant a visit if you’re in\u00a0Loudoun<\/a>, a beautiful Virginia\u00a0county that offers a lot to see and do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An afternoon trip to the Morven Park Museum of Hounds and Hunting in historic Leesburg, Virginia stepped us through the region’s rich history in fox hunting and beyond. The experience reminded me of many scenes and parallel events in House … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,80,78,76,1],"tags":[83,86,82,84,85,87,81],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists-2","category-equestrian-art","category-iii","category-museum-of-hounds-and-hunting","category-uncategorized","tag-equestrian-art","tag-fox-hunting","tag-iii","tag-morven-park","tag-museum-of-hounds-and-hunting","tag-virginia-piedmont","tag-wallace-w-nall"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/556f796f23314.image_.jpg?fit=760%2C636&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}