Imogen Mary Collier, later to become Mrs Joseph Oscar Muntz was born into a world of, Artists’ Writers’ and Horses. Her mother, ‘rode, and drove’, and Imogen learned to ride at a very early age.

Always asking for a pony, (and with Dartmoor on her doorstep), this was not difficult to realise and soon Gold Dust her first pony, a Dartmoor appeared.

 

 

 

 

Surrounded as she was with artists, her first lessons began by painting little, ‘cut out’ ponies and pasting them onto backgrounds. During her youth many influences came to bear, not the least of these being Dartmoor itself.

 

 

(Many picnics were held under the impressive crags of Vixen Tor)

Lady Elizabeth Butler, a close friend of Imogen’s mother’s, indeed one of our foremost, ‘Battle Artists’ 1846 – 1933, famous for her painting, amongst others of,
The Roll Call, (at the Royal Academy in 1874)
Scotland for Ever! Leeds City Art Galleries
Her cousin, the Honouable John Collier, 1850 -1934, (was vice-president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters), and is represented by eleven works at the National Portrait Gallery. One of his early works was a portrait of Sophy Collier, with Imogen in the background.
The first Lord Monkswell, (Imogen’s uncle and father of The Honourable John Collier) exhibited landscapes in the Royal Academy.
Another uncle, Mr Arthur Bevan Collier, was also very well known in the West Country for his landscapes.
And yet another uncle William Frederick Collier was well known for his writings on many subjects in the West Country, especially Dartmoor.

Imogen soon began to show talents with horses and as an artist.

Later Imogen Mary Collier studied art at the well known school founded by Mr. W. Frank Calderon, (son of Philip R.A.) The School of Animal Painting, in Baker Street, which no longer exists. His best known painting was the, Horse Fair (Royal Academy 1894).
A fellow student at the school was Lionel Edwards.
Imogen carried off two art scholarships, (details are unknown), but she is believed to have spent some time in Paris where the, “family say,” she knew “Gwen John”, 1876 – 1939, sister to Augustus John.

Imogen Mary Collier had two painting’s hung in the Royal Academy.
1899 In the Old Barn
1904 Rocket weight-carrying hunter at grass Note 8

Further she has painted two presentation pictures, one of the late Mr Masheter, Master of the Essex Hunt and one of the late Mr Penn Sherbrook, Master of the Synington (Yorks) Hunt.
She painted several famous racing ponies for Baroness Burton of Douchfour Inverness.

Until 1936 Mrs Muntz hunted frequently with the Dartmoor Hunt, “I know nothing more exciting”, she is reported to have said.
She always rode side-saddle, considering it to be very safe, unless one was foolish enough to cause a sore by riding badly, when one’s mount would be very keen to remove its rider at the first opportunity! (She has ridden at shows all over England, even Olympia it is said.)

Mrs Muntz thinks a child should not learn to ride before the age of four years, when he/she has a certain amount of confidence and will not be so easily frightened.

Later Mrs Muntz became known for her Children’s Ponies, and she was also a well known Judge.
In 1939 Miss Sybil Smith recalls, Judging at Devon County with Mrs Oscar Muntz, “Who bred lovely ponies. Many of the show ponies out today owe their quality to Love Song.”

To sum up, from shaggy unnamed ponies from the moor to well-groomed ponies ready for the show-ring, ponies populated Foxhams for more than fifty years.

In the beginning used for riding, harness and hunting, but later specifically purchased, or bred to form the evolving Foxhams Stud.

From the first Polo Pony Brood Mare, in 1899, to the children’s riding ponies of 1938, and beyond, Foxhams Stud, produced, ‘prize winning,’ Riding, Dartmoor and Shetland ponies.