1900 Portraits of Men and Women

Description

First Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Rebound, Signed

'Portraits of Men and Women' collects fifty-one portraits drawn by Violet Manners, then Marchioness of Granby and later the Duchess of Rutland. Those drawn include a variety of British royalty, politicians and socialites of the time, including Queen Victoria, Mary of Teck, and Lord Charles Beresford.

Nineteen of the fifty-one portraits are hand signed by the subjects; this book is signed by Manners on her self-portrait, famous author Rudyard Kipling, Miss Pamela Plowden, who Winston Churchill was 'head over heels in love with', Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill, Winston Churchill's mother, the prime minister during the start of World War One, H. H. Asquith, Harry Cust, the politician and alleged grandfather of Margaret Thatcher, and stage actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, who had a passionate affair with George Bernard Shaw through a 'legendary' exchange of letters. The other signatures are of: The Duke of Rutland, The Marquess of Granby, Lord Cromer, Sir Rennell Rodd, Lady Rodd, Lord Rowton, Lord Wantage, The Lady Wantage, The Countess of Westmoreland, Mrs Beerbohm Tree, The Rt. Hon. Sir Algernon West, Lord Roo of Belvoir, Lady Marjorie Manners.

Inscription from the author to a front end paper: 'For Betty from Violet Granby 1900'

This impressive work of portraiture is made all the more exciting by the signatures of those drawn, and by the profile of the artist herself.