'Lost in Reverie' - Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, later Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976), aged 4
Douglas John Connah (New York 1871 - 1941)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1894 (signed and dated) - 1894 (exh at RA)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1170 x 900 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Greenway, Devon
NT 120816
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, later Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976), aged 4 by Douglas John Connah (New York 1871–1941), signed upper right: Douglas Connah '94. A full-length seated portrait, of Agatha Christie, as a young girl, in a wing chair, holding her doll. Agatha Christie's father, the wealthy stockbroker Frederick Alvah Miller, was American and the New York-born portraitist, Douglas John Connah was a friend or possibly even a relation of Christie's American grandparents. Connah was the pupil of the American impressionist painter, William Merritt Chase (1849–1916). The portrait was most likely painted in England and is thought to be the work exhibited by Connah at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1894 under the title 'Lost in Reverie'.
Provenance
Given by Mrs Rosalind Hicks, Anthony Hicks and Mathew Prichard, 2006
Credit line
Greenway, The Prichard/Hicks Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Recto: upper right: Douglas Connah ‘94 Verso: label on the reverse: “Portrait” / Douglas Connah / Address c/o Messrs Reeves, 19 Lower Phillmore Place, Kensington. Also inscribed in pencil on the stretcher: “Agatha Clarissa Miller aged 4 years 1894”
Makers and roles
Douglas John Connah (New York 1871 - 1941), artist