Long shadows, warm beer and the art of cricket

As England vie for a place in the World Cup final, Alastair Smart gets into the mood with a tour of a little-known collection at Lord’s

Back in the 1860s, Sir Spencer Ponsonby-fane, treasurer of Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC), was urgently looking for artworks. He needed to decorate the newly refurbished and expanded pavilion at Lord’s, the MCC’S ground in London. As well as scouring art dealerships and auction houses, he invited club members to contribute any cricket-related work they owned. One member donated a cannonball from the Siege of Sevastopol: a memento from his service in the Crimean War, where the British Army played regular games of cricket (albeit not, presumably, with cannonballs).

Today it counts as one of 3,000 objects in the MCC art collection at Lord’s, where on Sunday the Cricket World Cup final is being held.

In the century and a half since Ponsonby-fane set to work, the club has continued to acquire art pretty much uninterruptedly. For cricket diehards, the collection is a must-see. In addition to the five highlights on this page, there are plenty of littleknown gems – such as Jacques Sablet’s painting from 1792, Thomas Hope of Amsterdam Playing Cricket with His Friends. It depicts a young Anglodutchman taking a break from sightseeing on the Grand Tour and picking up his bat. He’s in Campagna, with Mount Vesuvius for background.

The principal works are hung in the pavilion – either on the staircase or in the famous Long Room (both of which are on the players’ route from the dressing room to the field). Other pieces are dotted around the ground.

“People refer to Lord’s as the home of cricket,” says Charlotte Goodhew, MCC collections manager. “But we like to consider ourselves the home of the cultural identity of the game too: the art plays a crucial part in that.”

The MCC was founded in 1787 and it remains, to this day, the custodian of the Laws of Cricket, by which the game is played internationally. The collection includes a silk handkerchief from the 18th century on which the game’s original laws were first printed.

Part of Goodhew’s job is to keep acquiring work. Big-name artists aren’t really of interest (the MCC owns none of Francis Bacon’s paintings of figures in cricket pads, for instance). More coveted are works with a connection to the history of the game than to the history of art.

Given the size of the collection, a large chunk is kept in storage. It should also be pointed out that access to the pavilion is for MCC members only. To see the art, non-members must book on to a tour of the ground.

Occasionally, the MCC commissions new works, mostly portraits, such as that of the recently retired Sri Lanka captain, Mahela Jayawardene, wearing a hoodie to protect him from the English cold. It’s typical of the modern portraits at Lord’s that the subject is captured more informally than in the days of yore, when blazer and tie were mandatory. One hopes the MCC’S next commission is a group portrait: of England’s World Cup team with winners’ medals around their necks.