Oil on canvas. 1889. 42” x 29 1/8.”

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No. 216 in John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray.

Exhibitions: London, RA, 1890, no. 652, as “Mrs K”; Taft Museum of Art

Provenance: Presented by the artist to the sitter; her brother, Major Anstruther Gray; his son, Sir William Anstruther Gray, now Lord Kilmany; sold by him, Christie’s, New York, 11 December 1981, lot 93, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Cohen.

From John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits, by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, p. 220-221:

Clementina Anstruther–Thomson (1857-1921), known as “Kit,” was the daughter of John Anstruther-Thomson and his wife Maria Hamilton Gray (whose mother was the historian Caroline Johnstone). A prosperous landed family, they lived at Charlton, Fife, in Scotland. In the later 1880s, Kit became the inseparable companion and protégé of Vernon Lee, with whom she lived for a number of years. Whereas Vernon Lee was very much an intellectual, Kit was large and physical, a keen huntswoman (her father was master of Pytchley, Atherstone, and Fife hounds) and socializer, as well as a devotee of art and literature. The two women collaborated on a number of essays on aesthetics, beginning with Beauty and Ugliness in 1897, in which Vernon Lee’s theoretical analysis was supplemented by the observations of her friend before specific works of art.

It was as Vernon Lee's friend that Kit came to visit Sargent at Fladbury Rectory in August 1889. In the middle of the month, Vernon Lee went off to stay with another friend in Yorkshire, writing home on 24 August: I thought it more polite to her to go alone for a week first, so much to Kit's annoyance I left her at the S.s who are tremendously anxious she should stay & have some lessons from John' (Vernon Lee's Letters 1937, pp. 310-11). Four days later she wrote with some asperity:

Kit has been detained at Fladbury by John suddenly taking it into his head to paint a huge picture of her for next Academy or Salon. I believe it is very grand, but I wish he had thought of it before. Of course she could not refuse to stay on and pose as they have been so very kind to us both. But I miss her very much ... I fancy Kit will come early next week. Emily [Sargent] writes that she [Kit] is very anxious to get to me; but I have begged her to stay, so as neither to hurry the picture nor to weary her back by over long sittings.

Emily had, in fact, written to plead Sargent's case on 24 August 1889, describing the picture and asking whether Miss Thomson might stay on for a few days so that Sargent could finish the picture:

John has begun a large picture of Miss T. She has on her fur cape, shepherd's hat, & grey dress, & is standing on the grass with a back ground [sic] of a yew tree, & the side steps leading up to the house - just where you used sometimes to write, when Flora was painting. Miss T. looks splendid, & John is tremendously interested. (Colby College, Maine).

Quixotic and unusual as a characterization, the portrait verges on caricature. While the outdoor walking costume and rather masculine attitude may have been characteristic of Kit, who was, like Vernon Lee, argumentative and doctrinaire, it is difficult to know how the artist expected an audience unfamiliar with his subject to read the image. As an outdoor study, it should perhaps be judged as an experimental work.

The slight cropping of the inscription on the left suggests that the picture may have been cut down and altered after exhibition. An oil study (no. 217) shows the figure whole length, with more surrounding space, a wider view of the rectory on the right, and a hedge with stables beyond on the left.

At the Royal Academy, the titles of Kit's portrait and that of Mrs. Kissam (no. 210) were confused in the catalogue, the former appearing as 'Mrs K'. It was regarded askance by the critics, a 'shocking eccentricity' as the Magazine of Art (1890, p. 258) dubbed it.

There is some craquelure in the area above the sitter's head.

There are two drawings of the same date, one inscribed 'A Vernon Aug. 1889' and a second, in which she is dressed as one of the ladies in Titian's Sacred and Profane Love. The latter is in the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin.

Literature: Claude Phillips. ‘Fine Art. The Royal Academy. III’, Academy, XXXVII (7 June 1890), p. 394; Claude Phillips, The Summer Exhibitions at Home and Abroad®, Art Journal (1890), p. 217; "The Royal Academy (Third and Concluding Notice)', Athenaeum, no. 3265 (24 May 1890), p. 678; M.H. Spielmann, 'Current Art. The Royal Academy.-Il', Magazine of Art, XIII (1890), p. 258; The Royal Academy (Fourth Notice), Saturday Review, LXIX (24 May 1890), p. 634; 'Art. The Royal Academy-I. First Impressions', Spectator, 64 (3 May 1890), p. 624; C. Anstruther-Thomson, Art & Man: Essays & Fragments, London, 1924, p. 24, ill. frontis. (detail); Downes 1925, p. 156; Vernon Lee's Letters 1937, p. 311; Mount 1955, pp. 156, 432 (8919), as Caroline Anstruther Thomson; 1957 ed., pp. 131-2, 341 (8919); 1969 ed., pp. 156, 430 (8919); McKibbin 1956, p. 126; Olson 1986, p. 153.