Duncan Grant
1885 - 1978
His Master's Voice (Portrait of Vanessa Bell)

signed D. Grant and inscribed -/15 (lower left)
oil on canvas
unframed: 76 by 63.5cm.; 30 by 25in.
framed: 96 by 83cm.; 37¾ by 32½in.
Executed circa 1916-7.

Anthony d'Offay, London
Acquired from the above by Private Collection, U.S.A.
Sale, Spink & Leger, 7 June 2000, where acquired by the present owner

When Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell moved to Charleston in Sussex in late 1916, it was a somewhat remote and rudimentary farmhouse. There was no electricity, no telephone, water was pumped each day outside the house and there was little in the way of furniture. But comforts were gradually added, among them a splendid H.M.V. gramophone. It is seen here in the sitting room (now known as the garden room) with Vanessa Bell seated beside it, wrapped in a patterned shawl - the winter of 1916-17 was severe and Charleston was a cold house.

While music was not essential to Bell’s daily life, it was very important to Duncan Grant.. The house soon came to hold many long-playing records - early recordings of Monteverdi, Mozart in abundance, as well as works by Bach and Handel.

Grant first portrayed Vanessa Bell in 1911 and he continued to do so over the following fifty years. Some of the most intimate portraits belong to their early years at Charleston. She seems to have been willing to pose as a rest from the problems she faced in running a large household (which included her two sons Julian and Quentin) in difficult circumstances. There are relatively few paintings by Bell from this period of the First War. Grant could only paint on Sundays when he was free from agricultural work undertaken as a conscientious objector. There is a swift brilliance to this painting which suggests he was working against the clock. It is among the last group of works in Grant’s post-impressionist style.

It is worth noting that in her 1950 inventory of paintings at Charleston, Bell lists this unstretched canvas as ‘His Master's Voice’.

Richard Shone