Emile Charles Wauters 1846 - 1933

The Belgian painter Emile Wauters was a pupil of J.F. Portaels at the Bruxelles Academy, and began his career as a history painter.  In 1870 he was sent as artist-delegate to Suez for the opening of the Suez Canal, and from this came the enormous Cairo and the Banks of the Nile of 1881, an astonishing 380 feet wide.  He was based in Paris and became a fashionable portrait painter.  He also exhibited at the Royal Academy.

The sitter was the daughter of Senator William Sharon of Nevada.  On 9th May 1880 she married Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 7th Bt. (1849-1924) in San Francisco.  She died on 25th September 1924.

This portrait appears in a photograph of Frederick William Sharon's drawing room circa 1900 (illustrated here).