Attributed to Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland (1856-1937)

Manners was one of the central figures of the Souls, a group of aristocratic artists formed in the 1870s-90s. She published a selection of her Portraits of Men and Women, featuring drawings of her friends, in 1900. It has been suggested that the present watercolour is a depiction of Henry John Cockayne ('Harry') Cust (1861-1917), the politician and journalist.