Lot 212Y
24 May 2006, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £7,440 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistMiss E. Gertrude Thomson, R.M.S. (British, d.c.1932)
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900-2002), later Queen Consort, aged nine, wearing pale green smocked dress and large straw bonnet decorated with flowers.
Signed on the obverse, E.G Thomson, and inscribed on the reverse, H.R.H The Duchess of York/ at the age of nine./ E. Gertrude Thomson. R.M.S./ 11 Queen's Mansions/ Brook Green. W.6, gilded metal frame with leaf and bead border and ribbon banding.
Rectangular, 153mm (6in) high
Signed on the obverse, E.G Thomson, and inscribed on the reverse, H.R.H The Duchess of York/ at the age of nine./ E. Gertrude Thomson. R.M.S./ 11 Queen's Mansions/ Brook Green. W.6, gilded metal frame with leaf and bead border and ribbon banding.
Rectangular, 153mm (6in) high
Footnotes
Sold together with three letters from the artist, describing the present lot as the last miniature she painted. Despite the fact that she was impoverished, Thomson was reluctant to sell this work. In one of the letters, dated 1928, she despairs that, "my 'Little Duchess' may have to go tho' I simply hate to part with her, she's very winsome & she's the only beautiful miniature I have left to show anyone who may want to see what I was once able to do". In her letter, Thomson also predicts that, "one day she may be a valuable possession in a measure, for I think there's little doubt that she will 'sit on the throne of England'!".