SANT, JAMES (1820-1916)

"Mrs J.B. Watt (Mary Jane)" (c.1867)
oil o. canvas
75 x 62cm
signed lower right
*commissioned by family
*formally of the National Gallery Collection
*private collection, Sydney

James Sant CVA RA was a famous 19th century English Society Portraitist & genre painter. He studied under John Varley & Augustus Callcott, then at the Royal Academy Schools. In the 1860s he was elected to the Royal Academy & in 1871 he was appointed Official Portraitist to Queen Victoria, and was revered for his paintings of Prince Leopold & Princess Beatrice. He became a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1914 and resigned from the RA in the same year to "make room for younger men." His work can be found at the Tate Gallery and at the National Portrait Gallery.
 
The sitter, Mary Jane Watt (nee Holden) (1842-1879) was the daughter of George Kenyon Holden MLC (1808-1874), Australian Crown Prosecutor & Politician (& Private Secretary to Governor Sir Richard Bourke), and husband to John Brown Watt (1826-1897), Scottish-Australian Businessman & Politician. She was also the mother of Australian Aviator, Oswald Watt (1878-1921), & noted Pastoralist & Arts Patron, Ernest Watt (1874-1954), who owned this painting. Even though only 5 years of age when his mother died suddenly, Ernest sustained his mother's legacy; even having her image reproduced in the influential Home Magazine (of which he was a big contributor) in the "Belles Of Yesteryear" section in Sept 1923, shortly after donating this portrait to the National Gallery.
 
This large stunning portrait was donated to the Art Gallery Of NSW (then the National Gallery) in 1922 by the sitter's son, Ernest Watt, where it remained for several decades before being de-commissioned.