George Frederic Watts, OM, RA

(British, 1817-1904)

Portrait of Mary O'Brien 22 x 17cm (8 11/16 x 6 11/16in).

Footnotes

George Frederic Watts had made a living from portraits since he was a teenager, working in fine pencil, chalk and silverpoint, as well as oil. The present portrait was drawn after his Florentine period, at the residence of the British minister Lord Holland. Encouraged by Holland, Watts had embarked on the famous Hall of Fame portrait collection he presented to the National Portrait Gallery.

Mary Ellen Vere O'Brien was the niece of Watts's friend, the Irish poet and critic Aubrey de Vere. In 1850, the artist was staying with de Vere's family in Ireland at Curragh Chase and Dromoland, the home of Mary's parents, the Hon Robert and Elinor O'Brien, sister of Aubrey de Vere. Mary Seton Watts records that Watts had drawn Mary's grandfather Lucius O'Brien, Baron of Inchiquin at this time.

From his London studio at 30 Charles Street, as the new Crystal Palace was rising for the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, Watts wrote to thank Mary for her gift of a purse "which I shall always keep for the sake of Mary O'Brien and my first visit to Ireland . . . Your great card house was prodigious! What a pity you could not send it to our great glass-house exhibition as a specimen of Irish industry!" Watts would recall how at the age of twelve, shortly after sitting for her portrait, her finger had been shattered by gunpowder and a surgeon had to amputate. "If that is so please do it quickly, for papa will be home in half an hour". Mary asked her mother not to watch, but "look into my eyes and then you won't mind."

In the present portrait, her eyes gaze firmly on the viewer. Watts tended to draw his sitters deep in thought, their eyes often looking down. Here, the sitter seated facing front, her hair flowing over her shoulders, relates to his portrait of Lady Holland with her long hair flowing free (1844, Watts Gallery) and the pose of Alice Prinsep seated sideways at the piano (1860-61, private collection).

On 2 January 1868 Mary married Charles Spencer, a barrister and Secretary to the Commissioners of Lunacy, and grandson of the assassinated prime minister Spencer Perceval. Mary Perceval died on 19 June 1924.

We are grateful to Veronica Franklin Gould for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.

Literature
Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts, The Annals of an artist's life, 1912, Vol. I, pp. 110-3.
National Portrait Gallery, Manuscript catalogue of letters from G. F. Watts, Album XII, p. 50.
Veronica Franklin Gould, G. F. Watts, The Last Great Victorian, 2014, pp. 29 and 57.
Barbara Bryant, G F Watts Portraits, Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society, 2014, cat. 40.