MISATTRIBUTED AND DOUBTFUL WORKS.

BLACKHEAD LIGHTHOUSE / COASTAL SCENE.

[Posted 2 Nov 2021:]

BLACKHEAD LIGHTHOUSE / ‘COASTAL SCENE’ IS BY ANNIE I. L. M. ROBINSON, NOT ANNIE LOUISA SWYNNERTON.

A WATERCOLOUR was for sale by auction (passed) in Ireland, listed as by “Annie Swynnerton (1844-1933)”.

  • Media: watercolour.
  • Size: drawing 53.8 x 74.1 cm, frame 63.5 x 81.3 cm.
  • History:
    • 2014 – Auctioned Adam’s, Dublin, 9 Mar, lot 563, “53.5 x 73.5cm … ANNIE LOUISA ROBINSON SWYNNERTON (1844-1933) Coastal Landscape with Cliffs and Lighthouse Watercolour / Signed Together with [three other works]”, passed.
    • 2021 – Auctioned Morgan O-Driscoll’s, Dublin, 1 Nov, lot 218, “Annie Louisa SWYNNERTON (1844-1933) / Drawing-Watercolor / Watercolour/paper / 54.5 x 75 cm / signed lower left / Provenance: Private Collection”, passed.
    • 2023 – Auctioned Ross’s Auctioneers and Valuers, Belfast, 13 Sep, lot 256, “Artist: Annie Swynnerton / Title: ‘BLACKHEAD LIGHTHOUSE’ / Size: H 21″ x W 29″ (H 25″ x W 32″) / Medium: WATERCOLOUR DRAWING / Signature: SIGNED / Framed: YES / Condition: FOXING ON THIS WATERCOLOUR”, sold: hammer £20.
  • Location: ?

Thanks to a remarkable piece of research and piecing together of information by Alastair Swinnerton, the actual artist is identified as one Annie Lyle Robinson …

… a Belfast hotel keeper … (born 1897, don’t know what the other initials stand for), older sister to the Flora JC Robinson mentioned in the article [www.thegazette.co.uk]. They were partners in the Shaftesbury Hotel Belfast, and the article is about the dissolving of their partnership in 1949 … the location [is] Blackhead Lighthouse on the Antrim coast, walking distance from Forthill, Templecorran where Annie ILM was living at the time of the 1911 census.

Many thanks. I had seen the piece before but never listed it on this site because it was so unlike any of ‘our’ Annie’s work. I had, however, begun theorizing that it was one of her early watercolours, and that she perhaps had additional previously unrecorded middle names, or was just being creative with her signature. Shows how wrong one can be!

Thanks to Morgan O’Driscoll auctioneers for their communication.

[Posted 11 Dec 2021:]

THANKS to the owner of the painting offered at auction at Morgan o’Driscoll [dead link], 1 Nov 2021. The painting had been erroneously attributed to Annie Swynnerton, but the correct artist has been identified as one Annie I. L. M. Robinson, a Belfast hotelier and evident watercolour artist. (Research by Alastair Swinnerton.)

The owner visited the location identified – Blackhead Lighthouse, County Antrim – and took the photo below, showing the scene virtually unchanged.

PORTRAIT OF A VETERAN.

[Posted April 2024:]

I was sent the following images by someone asking if this was a work by Annie Swynnerton (neé Robinson). The painting, dated 1894, was determined by myself not to be by Annie, 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 always included her middle name – Louisa – in full or as an ‘L’, and unlike any of 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.

The uniform: possibly Royal Marines Light Infantry, 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.

Further images below if anyone would like to do a bit of detective work and elucidate further information or identify the sitter. Intriguingly 454 Fulham Road (2nd image below) was where Whistler had accomodation at one time.

[Alastair Swinnerton, 10:31 14 Apr 2024:] 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.

Elizabeth Crawford, 16:12 14 Apr 2024: 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.

THE GLOW WORM.

[Posted 11 Aug 2019.]

Web pages not infrequently claim that this painting, ‘The Glow Worm’, is by Annie. The late Susan Thomson’s The Life and Works of Annie Louisa Swynnerton (an excellent book which I really recommend) includes the work, identifying the image source as the ‘Kelly Gallery’, but without further detailing the reference.

GWv2

The painting has never stood out to me as being by Annie, not having her general style and being at odds with the kind of work she was doing around the claimed date of production, c. 1900, or really at any time in her career.

1895-1905

Annie 1895-1905: Sense of Sight / Colwyn Phillips / Dream of Italy / Lilie / Joan.

I believe I’ve tracked down the original reference to the web site of The Kelly Gallery, Pasadena, where an image of the painting was intermittently present from 2002 to 2009, labeled ‘Anne Louisa Swynnerton A.R.A. (Attr. To) / The Glow Worm / 30″ x 25″ / Oil on canvas’, but with no other supporting information. The Kelly Gallery has specialized in hosting Pre-Raphaelite style works in the past, so it makes sense for them to have such a piece, but I can find no other original reference to Annie ever having painted this.

Illiad Room.jpg

Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Very interesting but nothing by Annie.

I believe all web references identifying this work as Annie’s come from this source, and over time additional details have become attached to it, such as that it is hanging in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (www.myartprints.com) – there is no record of it there – or that it was painted c. 1900, perhaps an estimate by some blogger which has been repeated elsewhere and become ‘fact’. There is no mention in any source of the canvas being signed or dated.

Two versions of the image circulate. One is still retrievable from an archived page of the Kelly Gallery web site with the file name ‘ALS-02.jpg’, while the other, better quality image is found on poster sites with stock code ‘KEL-260096‘, suggesting it also originated from the Kelly site. Both are 460 x 600 pixels in size, the larger versions found on some blogs simply being blown-up versions of these images with no greater resolution of detail.

GWv1
GWv2

It’s frustrating not being able to pin down the original work, I presume by some lesser-known Pre-Raphaelite (1848-c. 1890) or Arts and Crafts period (c. 1880-c. 1920) artist. I’ve searched the ‘net every way I can think of with no success.

Could be wrong, of course, but one needs attributions to be evidence-based. Knowing of no original reference to Annie ever having painted this (e.g., period gallery and exhibition catalogues, the Swynnertons’ personal correspondence, contemporary commentaries on her works – I’m sure such an unusual work would have been mentioned) and nothing in the painting itself that to me specifically points to Annie, I’m afraid it’s still on my ‘mis-attributed’ list.

[Posted 5 Sep 2020:]

THE GLOW WORM is an image often attributed to Annie on web pages, but bears nothing of her style. It does resemble the style of uncle and nephew artists Arthur (1832-1915) and Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914), particularly the latter.

I’ve no stronger evidence than my personal impressions on this – background detail, brick-red hair and general posing of figures, but in Edwards’ watercolour Midsummer Eve (private collection, exhibited Birmingham Art Gallery, 2015-2016) he does include glow worms.

THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAIT OF A BLOND-HAIRED YOUNG CHILD.

[Posted Jan 2024:]

For sale by auction at Gorringe’s, Lewes, 8 Jan 2024, “Annie Louisa Swynnerton (1844-1933) – oil on canvas, three-quarter length portrait of a young child.”

Images: Gorringe’s.

  • Media: oil on canvas.
  • Size: 49 x 39 cm.
  • History:
    • 2924 – Auctioned Gorringe’s, Lewes, 8 Jan, lot 1790, sold: £130.
  • Location: ?

This is dated the year before Annie’s death, with an ‘AS’ monogram. This is unique, in that throughout her life Annie always included her middle name, Louisa, either in full or as an ‘L’ in her signatures. Also, the numbers in the date are rather plain in appearance, whereas Annie’s handwritten and painted calligraphy tended to be more ornate. Her name is written in two places on the back of the frame, but neither is typical of Annie’s hand.

On the rear of the frame is what appears to be a French label [with other text – the auction house web images are not quite clear enough to read this.

The last painting of Annie’s dated with certainty is her Equestrian portrait of Lady Mercy Greville, 1920, although a few others are probably several years later (see ‘works listed by date‘).

This will not be included in the online lists of works, as the anomalies make identifying Annie as the author very uncertain – more solid evidence needed.

Page last updated 14 Jun 2025.