Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959)

The present work most likely shows Sir Jacob Epstein's model Sunita, whose real name was Amina Peerbhoy. Epstein met her in 1924 at the British Empire Exhibition. Sunita, her son and her sister, lived with Epstein between 1925 and 1931 in Holborn. Epstein described Sunita as having a 'melancholy gravity' (see A. Keene, exhibition catalogue, The Two Mr Smiths. The Life and Work of Matthew Smith, London, Barbican Centre, 1995, p. 53).