Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, R.A.

Baroness Doverdale 

Mrs Arthur Pointing

Sale, Mossgreen Auctions, Australia, 20 May 2012, lot 72

Acquired by the present owner, 2013

Gerald Leslie Brockhurst was the most famous and sought-after portrait painter of his day. He is most typically associated with highly finished, glamorous female portraits with his subjects including the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich, Merle Oberon, J. Paul Getty and Mrs Paul Mellon. Brockhurst's artistic talents were recognised from an early age, as a student at the Royal Academy, Brockhurst won the Gold Medal for Drawing at the age of only 17. He went on to win a number of further prizes, one of which was a traveling scholarship to Italy, and his exposure to Italian Renaissance art had a profound impact on his work. Indeed the Italianate background to the present work owes much to this infuence. Brockhurst was able to depict his sitters with exacting detail whilst imbuing them with refined textures and tones.

The sitter in the present work is Edward Alexander Partingdon, 3rd Baron Doverdale who married Miss Audrey Pointing of Sydney where the couple lived.