John Singer Sargent

Mrs Philip Leslie Agnew

1902

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Not on display

Artist: John Singer Sargent 1856–1925
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 908 × 743 mm
frame: 1133 × 975 × 90 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Mrs Philip Leslie Agnew 1957
Reference: T00158

Catalogue entry

T00158 MRS PHILIP LESLIE AGNEW 1902

Inscr. ‘John S. Sargent’ t.l. and ‘1902’ t.r.
Canvas, 35 3/4×29 1/4 (91×74); painted surface, 35 1/4×28 1/4 (89×71·5).
Bequeathed by Mrs Philip Leslie Agnew 1957.
Exh: R.A., 1903 (262), as ‘Mrs Philip Agnew’; R.A., winter 1926 (48).
Lit: Charteris, 1927, p.270; Mount, 1955, p.437; McKibbin, 1956, p.81; Mount, 1957, p.346.

This portrait was commissioned in 1902 by Philip Leslie Agnew (1863–1938), the Chairman and Managing Director of Bradbury Agnew & Co., the proprietors of Punch magazine. He was the grandson of Thomas Agnew, the founder of the firm of art dealers. His wife, whom he married in 1889, was Alexandra Georgette, the daughter of Ewan Christian, and this portrait shows her at the age of thirty-seven. She died in 1957 on the day before her ninety-second birthday.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II