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Cecil Cutler Portrait Gouache The Suffragette 1910

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Cecil Cutler Portrait Gouache The Suffragette 1910 Cecil E Cutler  Cecil E S Cutler 1860-1934 %%alt5%% %%alt6%%
We are pleased to offer for sale this very well executed oval portrait gouache on card by the artist Cecil E. S. Cutler, who has signed the painting to the lower right. The painting depicts a society lady in evening dress, with a diamond pendant at her throat, wearing a white off the shoulder gown with diaphenous draperies around the shoulders, and with a bunch of violets forming the colours of the Womens Social & Political Union at the decolletage. The colours of purple, white and green, denote that she is a Suffragette and Member of the WSPU.

In 1908 the WSPU adopted purple, white, and green as its official colours. These colours were chosen by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence because "Purple...stands for the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette...white stands for purity in private and public life...green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring"

We have been doing some research into the main members of the WSPU during.the period from their formation until the start of WWI, when they ceased their activities for an amnesty from the government, and agreed to support the war. We believe, on the basis of her appearance alone, as we have no concrete proof, that this painting is of the suffragette Kitty Marion, whose biography we will give below. We found a photo of her online, looked for more, read her story and found the great resemblance she had to this painting. As she was a music hall actress, it is very likely that Cecil Cutler would have known her, as the Lyric Club in Hammersmith, now the Lyric theatre at a different site, was formed as a small music hall in Bradbourne Grove in 1888, and as you read below, Cecil Cutler was commissioned to paint the opening. This would therefore, date the painting to after 1908 when she joined the WSPU and probably nearer to that date than the beginning of WWI as her activism grew.

Kitty Marion 12 March 1871 – 9 October 1944) was born Katherina Maria Schäfer in Germany. She emigrated to London in 1886 when she was fifteen, and she grew to minor prominence when she sang in music halls throughout the United Kingdom during the late 19th century. She became known in the field for standing up for female performers against agents, corruption, and for better working conditions. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908, engaged in selling their newspaper Votes for Women and became a prominent suffragette in the United Kingdom for her participation in civil unrest protests including riots and arson. As a result, Marion was arrested many times and is known for having endured 232 force-feedings while on hunger strike in prison. She is quoted as saying “there are no words to describe the horrible revolting sensation.” When World War I started she emigrated to the United States, and there she joined the team on Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review. Although she used her tenacity and loud voice to get people to pay attention to her cause, she did not use violence as much as she had in the United Kingdom, although she was still arrested many times for advocating birth control.
As the painting has been, from its original framing between, encased between the old backing board and the mount, it is not possible to see whether anything was written on the back or below the oval mount, but we will leave it to anyone interested to look online for details and photographs on google and google images, to make up their own mind whether this is indeed a painting of Kitty Marion.

Cecil Egerton Seymour Cutler, was born in Putney in 1860, the son of a civil servant from the War Office. He attended Dane Hill House School in Margate in 1871, and received his artistic training at the RA Schools in South Kensington.

In 1888 he married Kate Colnaghi, who may well have been related to the owner of Colnaghi's Galleries in London, and in 1891, he was living with Kate in Chambers, New bond Street, London W1 and is listed as an artist, portrait and figures.

He and his wife mixed in high society and he was commissioned to paint a picture of the opening of the Lyric Club in 1888. He was a member of the Beaufort Club and painted vignette scenes of society gatherings, at the races, Ascot,etc. He was granted a sitting for a portrait of Edward VII and later painted his son George V on many occasions, and his son the Prince of Wales - Edward VIII. Princess Alexandra purchased from him a portrait of Queen Victoria in 1897. He did illustrations for magazines, including Thw Illustrated London News.

In 1893, Reynolds of St. James's Street had an exhibition of sketches and portraits by Cecil Cutler called 'In & About Town' which were racy snaps of London life in gouache. All in all, he seems to have painted portraits of many notable people of London Society at the time, including kings, dukes and aristocratic ladies, although, being portraits, many of these will still be in private hands.

There are two of his works in the National Collection which may be viewed at artUK.org. One being a print of his portrait of Edward VII and another oil on canvas of a posthumous portrait of a soldier in uniform.

In 1901, He and Kate were living at 12 Queen Anne's Gardens, in Brentford with his new son Seymour Bernard Egerton Cutler and his widowed mother. He was listed as a Portrait Painter. He later had another son Oswald, Ernest Harewood Cutler. He was still owrking as a portrait painter in the 1921 Census from a house in Heston, middlesex, but when he died on 14th March, 1934, he was living at 10 Duke's Avenue, Chiswick, West. London.

The painting is in its original oval mount, but has been reframed in a 2 inch gilded wooden frame It will be supplied with new brasss hangers, new brass picture wire and will be ready to hang.

Image size: 18 1/8 x 14 1/8 inches -- 46cm x 35.75cm

Frame size: 27 7/8 x 22 7/8 inches - 70.8cm x 58.15cm

Medium: Gouache on card

Condition: Excellent. There is no damage and the colours are bright. The mount is the original and in very good condition and the frame is new.
Price
£345.00  UK
$430.73  USA
402.99  EU
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Date Circa 1910  Edwardian Antiques Material Card Origin English Item code as237a2322 Status For Sale

SellerStudio RT Ltd

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Cecil Cutler Portrait Gouache The Suffragette 1910
 
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