Sir Stanley Spencer

At the time of this portrait, Stanley Spencer had long been acknowledged as one of the leading British painters of the twentieth century. Famed for his imaginative figure paintings and biblical themes, often set in his home village of Cookham, he was also a distinguished war artist. His remarkable murals in the Sandham Memorial Chapel - presented to the National Trust in 1947 - commemorate his experiences in the army during the First World War.

In the 1950s, already a C.B.E. and R.A., he was much in demand as a portraitist, receiving commissions from various friends and patrons (the two often became synonymous). There was the added attraction of their likenesses being exhibited at the Royal Academy. Spencer responded particularly well to his female sitters, often showing them in a half-length format at home in a relaxed setting, as in this portrait of Linda Few Brown.

This is one of Spencer's finest late portraits, and forms a striking image, in which the twenty-three year old Linda leans over the stable-style door, at the front of her house, Sherlocks, in the heart of Cookham Dean. Dressed informally, she seems very close to the viewer, as if about to speak. Linda and Peter Few Brown moved to Cookham Dean on their marriage in 1955. In the picture, her engagement and wedding rings are clearly visible. A few years later they moved again, to Primrose Hill, another house in the Dean.

The format of a woman at a door or window has historical precedents, for instance in seventeenth century Dutch paintings such as Rembrandt's Girl at a Window (1645) (Dulwich Picture Gallery). In the oft quoted but presumably apocryphal account by an early owner, the French theorist Roger de Piles, Rembrandt was supposed to have placed the picture in his window, so that it was mistaken for a real girl. Spencer for his part painted a notably modern woman, but the effect is equally immediate.

Linda Few Brown later recalled that the sittings lasted a month. She normally gave Spencer a lift on her Vespa scooter from his home, Cliveden View in Cookham Rise, and back when the sitting ended. He would spend the day at work, so she also provided lunch. After the portrait was finished, she asked him to draw her corgi Soxy. He made two drawings with expert rapidity (see lots 25 & 26).

The painting has not been seen in public since the Royal Academy's summer exhibition of 1959 - his final showing at the RA - where it was one of three works by Spencer. The other two were his Portrait of Kate Morrell (1959) and Boys' Garden (1957) (the area of Kate's garden where her sons played). The portrait of Linda Few Brown was singled out by the reviewer in the News Chronicle (May 1, 1959), who criticised many artists for depicting 'merely pretty girls', whereas 'Stanley Spencer has looked hard at Linda Few Brown'. The portrait was reproduced over the caption, THE 'GIRL WITH CHARACTER'.

On 7 July 1959, not long after the portrait was on display, Stanley Spencer received his knighthood at Buckingham Palace from the Queen Mother.

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