THE FENWICK PORTRAITS – PORTRAIT OF VIOLET EDITH FENWICK / ON THE TERRACE.

See also Portrait of Charles Fenwick and Portrait of David and Jonathan Fenwick.

Image: unattributed source.

  • Title(s): On the Terrace – A Portrait (Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Johannesburg, catalogue, 1910); On the Terrace (Portrait of Mrs. Fenwick) (Whitchapel Art Gallery, 1910).
  • Description: Portrait of a lady in a white, low-cut top and voluminous red skirt, a gold cushion at her feet, sitting, looking at the viewer, a stonework ornament above her to the left, background of dark blue sky with stars and near black branches of a tree outlined behind her head.
  • Media: ?
  • Dimensions: Canvas c. 200 x 115 cm, frame c. 225 x 145 cm (reference?).
  • Signature/date/other text: ?
  • History:
    • 1909 – Signed and dated (reference?).
    • 1909 – Exhibited Royal Academy.
    • 1910 May 10 to Jun 19 – Whitechapel Art Gallery, Twenty Years of British Art (1890 – 1910), no. 454, “Johannesburg Collection … On the Terrace (Portrait of Mrs. Fenwick)” – Presented to Johannesburg Art Gallery as part of the founding collection by Lady (Mrs. Lionel) Phillips (2006 biography).
    • 1910 – Listed in Municipal Gallery of Modern Art. Johannesburg. Illustrated Catalogue, 1910, so presumed to have arrived in South Africa that year; “Sir Hugh Lane … has already dispatched the first instalment of pictures, which … were on view at the Whitchapel Gallery last spring … (including) the flaming colour of Mrs. Swynnerton’s “On the Terrace”” (The Times, 5 Nov 1910).
  • Location: Johannesburg Art Gallery. (The gallery confirmed by email that the work is still on record as being in their collection [JAG cat. no. 34], but with no further information. It does not appear in the Google listing of the gallery’s assets.)

The Athenæum, 15 May 1909: on exhibition at the Royal Academy, “the best picture [Annie Swynnerton] has yet shown … displaying considerable powers of decorative invention.“

454, On the Terrace (Portrait of Mrs. Fenwick) / Mrs. Swynnerton / Presented by MRS. LIONEL PHILLIPS. / The human interest of this portrait, though considerable, is surpassed by the wonderful rendering of the textures and the bold colour of the dress and accessories. The paint is almost as thickly loaded as the work of Signor Mancini. / – G.R.

Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1910.

Entry in Illustrated Catalogue, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Johannesburg, 1910.

Daily Mirror, 28 Nov 1927: “The late Sir Hugh Lane commissioned her portrait of Mrs. Fenwick, a lady in a rose-coloured dress, for the collection he was forming in Johannesburg. He said he “must have a Swynnerton,” and went to Rome to arrange with the artist.”

Violet (1874-1972) was the wife of George Fenwick (1870-1937), the marriage lasting from 1901 to 1917. The terrace depicted is assumed to be at Temple Dinsley, the old manor house which the couple bought in 1908 and had enlarged. Temple Dinsley was sold after the couple divorced and is now a private school.

Fenwick family tree:

  • Herbert George Fenwick (1870-1937) = m. 1901, div. 1917 = Violet Edith Perkins (1875-1972),
    • Charles Fenwick (1896 – 1912/1913). Drowned in a fishing accident while on holiday in Norway.
    • David Fenwick (1910 – 1982).
    • Jonathan Fenwick (1911 – 1999).
    • Rachel Harding (1913 – 2006).

There are some notes on the Fenwick family at Philip Wray’s A History of Preston in Hertfordshire web page [copy here].

Page last updated 8 Jun 2025.