Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist's Estate, until 1987
With Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
With Davis & Langdale Company, New York, where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, British Modernist Art 1905-1930, 14 November 1987-9 January 1988, cat.no.126
New York, Davis & Langdale Company, Duncan Grant (1885-1978), 1997

Literature
John Russell, 'A Bloomsbury Founder, Always With an Idea', The New York Times, 7 March 1997, p.C30

Duncan Grant painted and drew Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) countless times between 1911 and Bell's death in 1961 (when he drew her on her deathbed). All these portraits reflect both the personal intimacy of the two painters as well as Grant's sometimes dizzying changes of style – from brilliant Post Impressionism to the careful portrayals of her as an old woman. The present audacious work is one of the very first images he made of her and is a startling example of the 'divisionist' style Grant adopted in 1911 (which Bell called his 'leopard manner'). The origins of this style are mixed: Grant may have seen early Matisse paintings in which Pointillist handling is evident; also works by Cézanne and Signac (but not Seurat); and the mosaics Grant greatly admired in Sicily in early 1911. The best known of these 'leopard manner' paintings are The Queen of Sheba (Tate) and Portrait of George Mallory (National Portrait Gallery). He sometimes used both fluent and spotted styles in the same painting, but the latter gradually disappears in 1913 (although it is found in some specifically decorative works in 1913-14). Pure, often unmixed colour was applied in spots and square, parallel brushstrokes, the image tightened by a few dark lines as seen here on the left side of Bell's face.

In several early portraits, Bell is fancifully dressed in striking hats or, as here, with a long yellow shawl over her head. It should be stressed that Bell was modelling for Grant rather than sitting for her portrait. He does not attempt to capture her particular beauty and flattery was a concept unknown to his personality. There is just a possibility that she is wearing metal spectacles, similar to these worn by Katherine Cox in another 'leopard manner' portrait (1912; two versions; Clandeboye, Northern Ireland; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff).

This painting remained with Grant and was inventoried by Bell in 1951 as 'VB in yellow and orange'. It was in his estate from 1978 until shown in New York in 1987 and has been in the U.S.A. until the present.

We are grateful to Richard Shone for his assistance in compiling this catalogue entry.