A portrait of Susan Isabel Dacre by Francis Dodd RA (1874-1949) – an etching dated 1907 – was sold by auction at McTear’s, Glasgow, on 24^th July. Isabel would have been 62 or 63 years old. Not an image I recall having seen before and have not managed to turn it up with internet searches, but being a print there may well be other copies in existence. Unlike other etchings by Dodd it has an ‘unfinished’ appearance, the clothing being only outlined. [Update, 29 Aug 2025: have located two copies of the etching at the British Museum, London, four copies at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, one at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, as well as being shown in Dodgson, Campbell, C.B.E., ed. (Oct 1926) The Print Collector’s Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3, p243. The title is “Lady Seated“.]

Appropriate that it should appear in Glasgow. Welsh-born Francis Edgar Dodd graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1893, winning a scholarship that enabled him to tour Europe. He returned to England in 1895, living first in Manchester and then London from 1904. Thirty years her junior, he shared a studio with Isabel as an aspiring artist while in Manchester, referring to her as ‘Aunt Suzzie’. They remained friends for life.

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Jonathan Russell