Jessie & Mary Herring

A pleasing pair of ¾-length watercolour portraits of sisters, Mary and Jessie Herring. Jessie, painted in 1837, when she was ten years old, is wearing a white dress with frilled sleeves and a blue sash. She has a coral beaded necklace, and a narrow bandeau in her curled hair. Standing next to a stone urn filled with flowers and foliage, Jessie is holding a tiny wicker basket of blue flowers but it is the blue parakeet perched on her finger that really catches the eye.

Her sister Mary, painted in 1835 when she was nine years old, is also wearing a simple white dress with a pink sash and puffed sleeves and a coral beaded necklace. She is standing next to a grape vine and has a wicker basket of summer flowers including roses and forget-me-nots.

Jessie and Mary were the seventh and eighth of ten children born in Marylebone to Charles Herring, a ship and insurance broker, and his wife Elizabeth (née Bone). Neither girl married: Mary died in Notting Hill in 1895, Jessie in Putney in 1912, each leaving a sizeable amount of money.

The watercolours reside in matching bird’s eye maple frames with gilt slips.