Sold....portrait of Elizabeth Moyra Goff 1902, by Mary Lemon Waller.

Oil on canvas in carved and giltwood Lely style frame.

This beautiful portrait of Moyra Goff, aged 5, has immense charm and is of great quality, possibly the most appealing portrait painted by the talented child portraitist Mary Lemon Waller.

Signed and dated 1902 bottom right.

Moyra's clothes are of late Georgian style and in the presentation of the sitter a clear acknowledgement is made to the famous 18th c. artist Sir Joshua Reynold's portraits of children.

ELIZABETH MOYRA GOFF (1897-1990) was the daughter of Major T.C.E. Goff and Lady Cecile Goff; she had a brother, Thomas Robert Charles Goff O.B.E. (born 1898). The Goffs were descended from William the Conqueror and King William IV was Moyra's great-grandfather on the Goff side: Lady Cecile's maiden name was Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby of the family of the Earls of Ancaster.

Lady Cecile wrote a book 'A Woman of the Tudor Age' about her ancestress Catherine Willoughby Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk (1519-1580). The Goff's home was an early Georgian house, The Courts, Holt, near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire; now a National Trust property famous for its garden.

A fine garden was first laid out by the architect Colonel Sir George Hastings in the early 1900s; this scheme was elaborated on by Lady Cecile 20 years later, after WW I. It was she who paved the paths and terraces with ancient slabs collected when Devizes gaol was demolished. Her daughter Moyra planted the arboretum in 1952 in an area that had previously been pasture.

Major Goff had given The Courts to The National Trust in 1943; he died in 1949. Moyra was the life tenant until her death in 1990. She continued driving her treasured AC Cobra even when she was in her eighties...Moyra in her open two seater, immensely powerful and loud with a 7.5 litre V8 engine, were a familiar sight (and sound!) in Holt. (The last photograph shows The Courts nowadays).

MARY LEMON WALLER (1851-1931), painting from 1871 to 1916, nee Fowler; member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. Born Bideford, daughter of Rev. Hugh Fowler. Studied at Gloucester Art School and Royal Academy Schools. She specialised in portraits of children. Her maiden name was Mary Lemon Fowler and she painted under this name before marrying Samuel Edmund Waller, the genre and animal painter.

Before marriage she is recorded as living in Gloucester. She later moved to 26, Circus Road, St. John’s Wood and it was during this time she probably met her husband. Later in 1881 they are both recorded as living at 58, Circus Road. She was made a Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1925 and exhibited sixty works there.

EXHIBITED:- 1877-1929 60 Royal Society of Portrait Painters 46 Royal Academy 13 Society of Women Artists 11 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 5 Royal Institute of Oil Painters 2 Dudley Gallery and New Gallery 2 Grosvenor Gallery 1 Manchester City Art Gallery 1 Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers 1 Royal Scottish Academy

SIZE: 52.5 x 40.75 inches inc. frame. Verso: handwritten 'Estimate for Major Goff of Holt'. Old label, 'Geo.W. Rodney. Carver, Gilder & Picture Frame Maker. Picture Cleaned, Lined & Restored. 1652, Campden Hill Road.'

PROVENANCE: Major and Lady Cecile Goff of The Courts; by descent to Elizabeth Moyra Goff; by gift to Moyra's god-daughter.

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