From: Matt Davies
Matt D avies@jssgallery.org
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002
Cynthia Charteris (1909), daughter of
Hugo and Mary Elcho (later the Earl and Countess of Wemyss), both members of the
Souls. Mary (Cynthia's mother) was painted by Sargent in 'The Wyndham Sisters'. Her bother was Hugo Charteris.
Cynthia later married the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's son (by his first wife) and Margot Asquith's step-son, who was also named Herbert.
(This is is from Cynthia Charteris' book Happly I May Remember, London: James Barrie, 1950.)
Fri, 21 Feb 2003
This drawing was exhibited at the 1916 Royal Society of Portrait Painters, hosted at the Grafton Galleries. After attending the show Cynthia commented in her diary:
"We went to the Grafton Gallery to see the exhibition of Sargent drawings. It's a real nightmare to see so many of one's friends so blatantly depicted staring at one from four walls - I think the one of me presents the foulest woman I have ever seen."
(Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Diaries 1915-1918. With a foreword by L. P. Hartley. London: Hutchinson of London, 1968. p. 174 )
Special thanks to Matt Davies, of Kansas City, a friend of the JSS Gallery, for sending me notes regarding this image.