As part of an eight-page pamphlet for The Colour of English Country Houses in 1944, Piper included a lovely auto-lithograph of Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire. This work was most likely sketched on the occasion of his visit to the Hall at this time and is of a slightly different angle. It is a working version of the cover of C Aspinall-Oglander's 'Admiral’s Widow’, 1942 (Hogarth Press). The print is cat. no.51.\\\

Piper gives a lovely description of this Elizabethan country house in the introduction to the pamphlet as follows: ‘A yellow stone house of the seventeenth century, in rolling green hunting-country. It gleams in the sun, forms a warm eye-catcher in dull weather and glimmers whitely in moonlight. It is another ruin, partly roofless, and has recently taken over by the Office of Works to be preserved as a show-place.’ (John Piper). Here, Piper, painting at night in the light of the moon, depicts the north front from the inner courtyard, capturing the brilliance of the moonlit night as it dances over the ruins making it in Piper’s own words ‘glimmer whitely’ whilst the dramatic shadows darken the archways and windows.

A working version of C Aspinall-Oglander's 'Admiral’s Widow’, 1942 (Hogarth Press). The print is cat. no.51.