MAN WITH DONKEY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1937, Page 5

MAN WITH DONKEY

TWO COPIES PAINTED

(By Telegraph—Press Association). AUCKLAND, September 16. Two copies of the famous picture, "Simpson and his Donkey," differing in size and in some details, were painted at the same time by the late Sapper H. Moore-Jones, according to Mr. A. A. Schmidt, an Auckland artist, who was a close friend of Moore-Jones and saw him at work. "The painting possessed by the Auckland Commercial Travellers' and Warehousemen's Association and that which was sent to England were painted at the same time, but the one now in Auckland was finished first," said Mr. Schmidt. "I was frequently with Moore-Jones while he was doing these pictures. , "As far as I can remember the painting sent to England was much smaller than that now in the Commercial Travellers' Club, and it was because of its smaller size that it was sent for reproduction by a London publishing company. There were some slight differences in the two paintings, the wounded soldier's head in one case resting back on the shoulder of the soldier standing beside the donkey."Referring to the photograph obtained in the south by Sapper Moore-Jones, Mr. Schmidt said it was a small snapshot, 2i'm by 3^in. It was used by the artist merely to get the likeness of Simpson, the driver of the ambulance donkey, who was known to the peninsula soldiers as "Murphy." "There is a lot of quibbling about these pictures," Mr. Schmidt continued. "They are both originals, for they were worked upon at the same time. Anyhow, it is the artist's privilege to paint the same subject over and over, again, and I consider such pictures are all originals. Old masters did the same thing."