Augustus John, R.A.

The Artist, until circa 1923-26
Chenil Galleries, London, where acquired by Mrs Cyrus McCormick, 1926
Redfern Gallery, London, where acquired by Denys Miller Sutton, 18th June 1959 and thence by descent to the previous owner
Their sale, Sotheby's London, 10 December 2013, lot 142, where acquired by the present owner

Albert Rutherston, Augustus John, London, 1923, illustrated pl. 21 (as Study of a Woman in a Pine Wood)
Terence Mullaly, 'A Chance to Find an Audience', Daily Telegraph, 20th June 1960, illustrated

Dating the work to an exact year is elusive. In the present work Dorelia is wearing the same blue and white spotted dress as in the National Museum of Wales' Dorelia in the Garden at Alderney Manor and has the same bobbed hairstyle as seen in the Tate's Portrait of a Woman - both dated to 1911. If indeed the work was painted at Alderney Manor in Dorset, where pine trees grew, it would have been after March 1912 following Dorelia's birth of their daughter, Poppet. Alternatively, if could have been painted at Martigues, south of France, where the family rented the Villa Ste Anne from 1910. (The painting’s title in Rutherston’s 1923 book is ‘Study of a Woman in a Pine Wood’, when the picture was owned by Augustus).