Allen Jones is a British sculptor and pop artist who studied at Hornsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Along with Derek Boshier, David Hockney, R.B. Kitaj and Peter Phillips, Jones radically changed the face of British art.
The Chatsworth House Trust commissioned this piece when the artist was visiting Chatsworth in the hope of finding a position for another piece of his sculpture owned by the 12th Duke of Devonshire.
The Duke explains how the making of Déjeuner sur l'Herbe came about: "after dinner Allen produced a cardboard box which he invited Amanda to open ... out came a paper maquette for what has become his Déjeuner sur l'Herbe. It took 20 months to move from admiring the maquette to unveiling the finished work but it has been well worth the time. Finding a site was as fortuitous as agreeing the commission: the gardening team had been clearing the Ponticum Rhododendron from Quebec and so we had penetrated to the semi over grown clearing where the work is now sited but Allen, Deidre Morrow, Amanda and I spent a number of happy hours searching for a suitable site well before Allen had started to design the final Dejeuner and after a few false starts we decided that this was perfect ... the combination of the total seclusion with the views to the river and beyond to what is still recognisably Lancelot Brown's 18th century park made this just what Allen was hoping for."
