EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF LADY MERCY GREVILLE.

See also: Equestrian portrait of Lady Mercy Greville, sketch for.

  • Title(s): Equestrian portrait of Lady Mercy Marter, daughter of Frances, Countess of Warwick (Christie’s, 2012); Lady Mercy Greville (The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 21 Mar 1927; 1923 exhibition, assumed to be this work); Mercy Greville: early morning, Easton Lodge (Illustrated London News, 8 May 1920).
  • Description: A girl astride a dappled grey horse, two goats in the foreground, background of daisy-speckled open pasture, trees in the distance, blue sky with clouds.
  • Media: oil on canvas (Christies, 2012).
  • Dimensions: “93 x 62 in. (236.3 x 157.5 cm.)” (Christies, 2012).
  • Signature/date/other text: “signed and dated ‘Annie L. Swynnerton 1920’ (lower right)” (Christies, 2012).
  • History:
    • Note: apart from 1968 and 2012 auctions, unclear whether this or the Sketch for ~ is referred to.
    • 1920 – “signed and dated ‘Annie L. Swynnerton 1920’ (lower right)”; commissioned by the Countess of Warwick* (Birmingham Daily Gazette, 13 Jul 1920, p4), “her youngest child, Mercy Greville”. (In the Illustrated London News, 8 May 1920, the painting is given the title “MERCY GREVILLE: EARLY MORNING, EASTON LODGE“.)
    • 1920 – Exhibited Royal Academy – Summer Exhibition, no. 553, “MERCY GREVILLE: early morning, Easton Lodge (catalogue).
    • 1923 – Exhibited Manchester – Paintings by Mrs Swynnerton, no. 40, “Lady Mercy Greville” (1923 exhibition, assumed to be this work).
    • 1927 – Exhibited Manchester – 68th Annual Exhibition, “Lady Mercy Greville” (The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 21 Mar 1927).
    • 1934 – Women’s International Art Club – Annual Exhibition, “The celebrated portrait of the Hon. Mercy Greville as a child” (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 24 Feb 1934, p12).
    • 1934 – Exhibited Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool – Sixtieth Autumn Exhibition (Christie’s, 2012).
    • 1968 Nov 8 – Auctioned Christie’s, lot 171, “Provenance / Anonymous sale” (Christie’s, 2012).
    • 2012 Dec 18 – Auctioned Christie’s, London, lot 124, “PETER LANGAN [restauranteur and patron of the arts]: A LIFE WITH ART”, “Lady Mercy Marter (née Greville) (1904-1968) was the daughter of society beauty and socialist Frances Evelyn Greville, 5th Countess of Warwick. She was formerly wife of Basil Dean and Patrick Gamble and wife of Richard Marter”, sold: hammer £8,500, premium £10,625.
  • Location: ?

In 2021 received the following, for which very grateful, from the actor Michael Sinelnikoff (1928-2024; archived personal web site), regarding his Godmother, Mercy, daughter of Frances Evelyn ‘Daisy’ Greville, Countess of Warwick (1861-1938):

From my 93-year-old memory …

Quite some time after she had decided that her child-bearing days were over, Daisy was informed during a routine doctor’s visit that she was pregnant. “Mercy!” she exclaimed and indeed it [the child] was. (I think it’s true, but even if it’s a fiction, it’s a good one.)

Mercy was my godmother and even more beautiful than your image. Red hair, green eyes, delicate pale skin. She was very well-known in London’s West End and we got on very well and she was able to smuggle me into bars, much to my mother’s horror. Mercy drank whisky … I drank lemonade. And we talked a lot … I don’t remember any other details. Late in life she married Dick Marter and they bought a small house in rural Wales where my mother and I once visited.

I don’t exactly recall my age, but my family had rented “The Golf House” in Stansted one summer, and Basil Dean and Mercy were staying with us. I hated Basil on sight and turned the garden hose on him and everybody. Several years later I was allowed to stay up for dinner at Easton Lodge, and was very bored. Daisy, who had arrived with the usual cloud of dogs sitting on her train, was in deep conversation with senior politicians, when I piped up with “don’t talk so much Aunt Daisy and finish up your beer.” Daisy smiled and said, “It’s not beer, darling, just water in a brown glass”. My Mother hustled me away and up to bed.

A few days later, I was in a kind of round, two-storey building that was an extension of Easton when Aunt Daisy appeared on the upper level and started coming down the stairs, dog-cloud surrounded. She said, “I’m a bit slow, darling, because of my phlebitis.”, which I heard as flea-bitis and said “I’m not surprised, with all those dogs”. Daisy laughed a lot and ordered tea for the two of us. I wish I could remember more.

I was about ten when a white bull-terrier called Podge appeared in our Earl’s Court Square maisonette. She had the habit of carrying sizable flints around and dropping them so you could throw them for her. Dick Marter, monocle and all, was under his car when Podge dropped a sizable flint on him and broke one of his teeth. Dick told my mother that if she didn’t remove Podge permanently, he would kill her (Podge, not my mother..!).

Unfortunately … a fall down the stairs of her house … caused her death. Aeons later (I am in my 90’s) I still miss her. She had joie-de-vivre and an incomparable sense of fun. Your artist … does exquisitely beautiful work. What a pleasure.

🍁 Michael S., December 2021.

There are some notes on the life of Lady Mercy HERE.

* Frances Evelyn ‘Daisy’ Greville, 5th Countess of Warwick.

** The painting is titled Equestrian Portrait of Lady Mercy Marter in the Christie’s sale, but as the sitter did not marry into the Marter family until 1936, Greville is more appropriate and would have been the name used in the 1923 exhibition. (Thanks to Grant Waters for this observation, confirmed by later research.)

Page last updated 24 Aug 2025.