Sir Francis Grant P.R.A. 1803-1878

J. B. Abzahaw, sold Sotheby's Belgravia, 20th November 1973, lot 57 ('Mending a Stocking')

The subject of this picture is the artist’s daughter Elizabeth, the only one of his four daughters not to marry. He corresponded with her frequently in the 1870’s and this romantic image is a clear reflection of his affection for her.

Grant married twice, on both occasions into important families. His first wife Amelia was sister of Farquharson of Inverclauld. Following her early death, less than a year after their marriage, he married Isabel Norman, niece of Duke of Rutland. His new wife did much to encourage his career as an artist and kept a list of her husband’s pictures which Elizabeth took over and edited.

The informality of his portrait of Elizabeth is characteristic of Grant’s willingness to move away from straightforward portraiture when painting members of his family. He painted his daughter Mary Isabella in 1850, also knitting but this time in an eighteenth century type exterior. His daughter Daisy was painted in 1857 standing in a snow covered landscape, one of her daughters was painted as Summer in 1876. Among other family portrait are a full length portrait of the artist's younger brother General Sir James Hope Grant (who fought in the Indian Mutiny) and a portrait of his son Francis on his favourite hunter.

As Catherine Wills has pointed out, from 1874 Grant’s paintings took on a new lease of life and many of them are higher quality then those produced in the previous decade. The present picture, the closest that Grant came in any late work to a genre scene, must be considered as one of his finest portraits.

An amusing side light is shed on the reception of the painting when it was first exhibited. The artist wrote to his daughter: ‘I must write once more to you – the passing of the pictures is over – and now I am beginning to prepare for my great dinner… Miss Grant – that is you – is hung in the large room – your picture is greatly damaged because you are sat next to a yellow sky by Abraham Cooper. The Committee quite acknowledge it and I proposed to put your picture at the other side of the same wall between two quiet pictures which would have suited it charmingly – and so I went home happy – where a cab arrived and a special messenger with a rider [said] that when they proposed the arrangement, they forgot Miss Grant would be placed turning her back on the Duchess of Edinburgh, who is to occupy the centre, which would never do. They offered to do everything that was kind and put the picture in some good place in another room – but they thought I could not do better then leave it where it is – on the other side of the likeness, quite forgetting that it was quite as great a breach of etiquette [sic] for Miss Grant to be lolling in an arm chair and knitting a stocking in the presence of her Royal Highness as turning her back – indeed, much worse – because in the last case Miss Grant might not be aware of the presence of the Royal Highness, whereas in the former there is no apology. Still I am charming with their loyalty.’

We are grateful to Dr. Catherine Wills for her assistance in cataloguing this work.