DUNCAN GRANT (1885-1978)

Duncan Grant first met Ka (Katherine) Cox through the company of Jacques Raverat, a French painter, and his fiancé Gwen Darwin in 1909 during a visit to Firle. Ka, Jacques and Gwen were a part of Rupert Brooke’s movement of ‘Neo-Pagans’ that frequently interacted with the Bloomsbury Group. A close friend of Virginia Woolf, Ka Cox sat for Grant on several occasions in the decade that followed and this painting from 1911 is one of three or four studies of Cox. She is the sitter in some of his notable works of the period, such as Seated Woman, (Courtauld Gallery, London), and Katherine Cox, (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff).

We are very grateful to Richard Shone for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.