Marie Meredith, 1894 (coloured chalks on paper)

A lucent example of Sandys's fine technique in coloured chalks, here he has drawn his friend the novellist George Meredith's (who sat for Henry Wallis's Death of Chatterton) daughter Marie in 1894, when she was 23 and just married. Sandys was fond of her and called her by the affectionate names of 'Mariette' or 'Riette', and her father called her 'Dearie'. In December 1894 Meredith wrote to Sandys, 'I have bidden the Dearie march to the finish of her portrait, and she has vowed over again that she wished to and would. Your call will compel her. She has had visitings and receivings to do since her marriage'. Marie appears to have already sat for Sandys in 1890