Portrait of a veteran

On By Jonathan Russell

This is the portrait by an unidentified “A. Robinson” mentioned in a previous post. Dated 1894, it was quickly determined by myself not to be by Annie Swynnerton (neé Robinson), although one has to add there can always be a remote possibility, just very unlikely – atypical signature, date wrong for ‘Robinson’ as she was signing Swynnerton by then, and so unlike her other works.

The correspondent took a lot of trouble to provide quality images, so it would be very pleasing to be able to provide him with more information.


I’m definitely not an expert in such things, but the uniform: looks like that of an officer of Royal Marines Light Infantry to me, with the India General Service Medal (red-blue-red-blue-red) and Meritorious Service Medal (white-red-white-red-white) ribbons. The red uniformed toy figures are correct for the ordinary servicemen’s field uniforms of the time.

I’ve attached further images below if anyone would like to do a bit of detective work and elucidate further information or identify the sitter. I do not have internet at home at the moment – laboriously composing this post on my mobile – so can’t easily do research myself.

3 thoughts on “Portrait of a veteran”

  1. Interesting. I mean, it is accomplished enough to be by Annie, although it’s a little too photoreal for her. The framers are close to her studio as well. But no, the signature is very wrong, so I feel it must be a different Robinson. My dad would have known all about the uniform and medals in an instant 😔. I just searched for 454 Fulham Road, and it was where Whistler lived for a while, as well as Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. There was also a foundry there, where many sculptors had their statues made. Can’t find any reference to an A Robinson though.

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    1. Jonathan ~ so intriguing. In my investigations I encountered the facts mentioned by Alistair. I discovered, from the electoral register, that the name attached to ’20 Bina Gardens’ was likely to be ‘Gordon-Brown’ and that I see from the electoral register that in 1948 a Douglas Spencer Gordon-Brown (1895-1981) did live at that address. He was born in Burma, but his father doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with the army, but was, I think, a merchant. However, I then found that Douglas Gordon-Brown, at that time a captain in the Black Watch, was married in Nov 1923 at Quetta, Baluchistan, to Rose Robinson. Now, this was a Eureka moment, as I’d discovered, again from the electoral register, that in 1905 the inhabitant of one of the studios at 454 Fulham Road was an artist, Arthur Julius Robinson (1872-1944). Aha, ‘A. Robinson’, I thought. However, on investigation I discovered that he seemed to drop the ‘Arthur’ and was known as ‘Julius Robinson’ for instance, signing the 1911 census as such and with a signature quite different from the signature on the painting. I don’t know for how long he occupied that studio, as really it was something of a fluke that he showed up at the address at all because studios rarely appear as addresses on the electoral roll and he was actually living elsewhere at the time. BUT, from the Gordon-Brown/Robinson British India Office marriage return I see that Rose’s father was Oliver Robinson, a brother of Arthur Julius Robinson so there is obviously some very close connection. When Oliver Robinson (1867-1947) retired he was a Maj. General in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Rose Robinson’s maternal grandfather, Sir Henry Harrison, was in the Bengal Civil Service so the family had quite a long association with India. So we can link the Bina Gardens label and the 454 Fulham Road label by way of the Robinson/Gordon-Brown family and from them to India. The framers label is that of Chapman Bros, a well-known firm in the King’s Road tho I must say the current frame doesn’t look as old as the label would suggest. There is obviously a strong family connection between Arthur Julius Robinson and the Gordon-Brown family but, with the signature on the painting being so different from that on his census form, I wouldn’t like to categorically claim him as the artist. I have looked for other ‘A. Robinson’ artists in the family but haven’t found any. And I couldn’t put a name to the sitter although the fact that the portrait was kept in the family, does suggest there may a close connection.

      Elizabeth Crawford

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