John Peter Russell (1858-1930)

The present and following seven lots are from the descendants of Russell's second wife, the American opera singer Caroline de Witt Merrill, and are part of a bequest of her late husband's paintings to her niece. Following the death of his wife Marianne in 1908, Russell took his daughter Jeanne to Italy in 1910 to study singing under the tutelage of Felize Medori, Caroline's stage name. Caroline joined the Russell household in Portofino and the two married in Paris in 1912. The family travelled in Switzerland, Italy and France until moving to London in 1915. After the Great War the Russells travelled on the continent again before Russell took his family back to the antipodes in 1921, spending his last years in Sydney, living on the harbour at Watson's Bay.