Dame Ethel Walker

Catalogue entry

N03685 MISS BUCHANAN c. 1922

Inscr. ‘Ethel Walker’ b.l.
Canvas, 30×25 1/8 (76·5×64).
Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid) 1922.

Miss Grace English has described the sitter as ‘Miss Mamie Buchanan, daughter of a famous British Ambassador to Russia, ...’ (typescript MS., f. 13) but members of the Buchanan family are agreed that the woman shown in this portrait bears no resemblance to either Sir George Buchanan's only daughter, Meriel, or to Mamie the sister of Sir Charles Buchanan and cousin to Meriel.

‘Mamie’ is a diminutive of Margaret or Mary, and there was a sculptor, Miss Mary Buchanan, who exhibited occasionally at the R.A. and R.B.A. during the 1920s, and may be the sitter, although there is no direct evidence.

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

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