PORTRAIT OF GEOFFREY AND CHRISTOPHER HERRINGHAM / THE YOUNG GARDENERS.

Illustration in New Gallery catalogue, 1890.

  • Title(s): Portrait of Geoffrey and Christopher Herringham (this web site); The Young Gardeners: Geoffrey and Christopher Herringham (title on picture frame); Sons of W. Herringham, Esq., M.D. (New Gallery catalogue, 1890).
  • Description: Two young boys , one sitting on an upturned wheelbarrow, the other standing with the handle of a gardening tool in his left hand, in a rural landscape.
  • Media: Oil on canvas (artuk.org).
  • Dimensions: 35 x 35 in. (New Gallery catalogue, 1890)/ 91.5 x 91.5 cm (artuk.org).
  • Date/signature/other text: Signed and dated “Anna L Swynnerton 1889” (artuk.org).
  • History:
    • 1889 – Date on canvas (artuk.org).
    • 1890 – Exhibited New Gallery, no. 192 (New Gallery catalogue, 1890).
    • 2018-2019 – Exhibited Manchester Art Gallery, 23 Feb 2018 to 6 Jan 2019.
    • Nov 2022 – Exhibited Tate Britain, “Spotlights: Annie Swynnerton”.
  • Location: Royal Holloway, University of London (artuk.org).
Christiana Herringham.

Geoffrey and Christopher Herringham were the sons of Christiana Jane Powell (1852-1929) and Dr. Wilmot Parker Herringham (1855-1936). Christiana was a committed suffragist and an artist. Her interests included recording Indian art and reviving medieval tempera techniques, translating into English a book by the Italian artist Cennino Cennini on painting techniques, written about the year 1400. She founded the National Art Collections Fund.

Christopher developed acute rheumatoid arthritis in 1891 aged only nine, and died two years later. Geoffrey died in the First World War at the Battle of Messines, October 1914. These events devastated his mother who suffered periodic mental health issues for the rest of her life.

A thesis on Christiana Herringham’s art by Michaela Jones is available at royalholloway.ac.uk.

A selection of Christiana’s work:

Page last updated 29 Sep 2025.