Hammer

£2,600

Late 19th century Pre-Raphaelite School, mother and children, oil on canvas, 129x153cm

Provenance: from the collection of Roysia and Raffaello Romanelli

Mrs Romanelli writes 'The other day you asked me for the name of my mothers’ grandparents’ Home and I have not answered because I don’t have that information. However, I realise that kind of information would be helpful in connection to their friendship with the Pre-Raphaelites. So what I do know is the following. My mothers’ family lived in Chelsea until 1911 when they moved to Kew. My mother’s Uncle, William Arthur Jones, was Editor of the Weekly Times for thirty years and more, and he was part of the Literary and artistic circle who had once surrounded the Rossetti's. Sunday afternoons were most often spent in Uncle Wills’ house for the two families were very close. It was over tea or dinner in her Uncle Will’s House, with its’ gardens that backed onto those of the Crystal Palace, that my mother came across such people as Algernon Swinburne and Theodore Watts – Dunton. I think this gives a sprinkling of information as to where these connections came from.'