Framed portrait of Gabrielle Enthoven (1868-1950) by Ethel Wright (1866-1939). Oil on canvas, ca.1911

S.69-2022
Oil painting on canvas of Gabrielle Enthoven, standing, wearing a black coat with a white carnation on the left lapel, a black stock at her throat, one white cuff showing below her left coat sleeve, and one white glove worn on her right hand that rests upon an upright piano or harmonium to her right. Her ungloved left hand is partly in her pocket, the glove dangling from it. A framed drawing or painting of a French can-can dancer hangs on the wall behind her above the dado rail.

S.69:2-2022
19th-century Rococo-style frame with applied decoration of gilded pressed composition ('compo') of acanthus leaf, acanthus flower, and shell motifs. The frame has a gilded slip frame with a bevelled sight edge. Affixed to th back of the frame, top centre, is the printed label of F. Casson: 'Gilder, Picture Frame Maker, Print & Picture Dealer, Restorer & Re-Gilder, 20, Bond Street, Hull, Dealer in Artistic Materials of Every Description'. A width of canvas wrapped over the stretcher verso. lower left, bears the remnants of a white paper label torn in two, printed 'Royal Aca..... Arts' and 'MD...XCI', and 'Mrs Enthoven.... Ethel Wright', the title and name of the artist as they appeared in the catalogue for the 1911 Royal Academy Exhibition in Burlington House. A torn white label fixed to the central wooden stretcher is inscribed with the name and address: 'Wright / 9 Compagne Premiere / Bould. Montparnasse / Paris / Via Folkestone & Boulogne'.

This is the only known painting of Mrs Gabrielle Enthoven (1868-1950), whose collection of over 80,000 programmes, prints and play texts was accepted by the V&A in 1924, becoming the founding collection of the museum's Theatre and Performance section. In 1922 the V&A had staged the International Theatre Exhibition, first seen in Amsterdam, which had increased the interest in theatre history. Enthoven had long campaigned for 'a comprehensive theatre section in an existing museum' and, following its acquisition by the V&A, she worked voluntarily on the collection, augmenting it and paying for cataloguing help until her death in 1950.

The artist Ethel Wright (1866-1939) studied in London and Paris and was known in London’s art world by the time she was thirty. A staunch supporter of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, Wright’s painting of Christabel Pankhurst is in the National Portrait Gallery. The portrait of Enthoven was exhibited in the Royal Academy’s 1911 Exhibition and was bequeathed by Enthoven to the musicians, the Harrison Sisters.

S.69-2022