Although the sitter of this portrait remains sadly unknown, it has been suggested that it could represent a gardener at Katherine Mansfield's house in Sierre, Switzerland where Dorothy Brett spent time in 1922. The white house behind with its closed shutters does bear similarities to the building shown in photographs of Mansfield and Brett at this time, and the tree and building undoubtedly are European.

It has also been suggested that the sitter could be Lionel 'Tiger' Gomme, the gardener and briefly the lover of Lady Ottoline Morrell at Garsington before his sudden death in 1922. There is a photograph of Gomme (illustrated in M. Seymour, Ottoline Morrell: A Life on the Grand Scale, London, 2009, p. 310-311), dated 1920, wearing a similar apron to the present lot.

We are grateful to Sarah MacDougall for her assistance in the catalouging of this lot.


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