A woman, previously designated as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson or Isabel Thorne. Oil painting.

Reference:
45521i
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Credit

A woman, previously designated as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson or Isabel Thorne. Oil painting. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

Bears printed label on back of stretcher identifying the subject as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson ("Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Lic.. Soc.. Apoth.. Lond.."): probably erroneous, but possibly correct in asserting some connection of the portrait with Anderson. It has been suggested that the sitter resembles two other women doctors:. One is Isabel Thorne at a later age (photograph in Edythe Lutzker, Women gain a place in medicine, 1969, p. 62). Isabel Jane Thorne (1833/4-1910) was one of the "Edinburgh Seven", a group of women who attempted to gain professional qualifications in medicine from the University of Edinburgh, led by Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912). The other is Mary Murdoch of Hull: see Hope Malleson, A woman doctor: Mary Murdoch of Hull, London: Sidgwick & Jackson 1919. However the present sitter cannot be identified positively with either Thorne or Murdoch. It has also been suggested that the sitter is Syrie Barnardo (born Elmslie), mother of Syrie Wellcome.

Physical description

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 61.5 x 51 cm

References note

Christopher Wright et al., British and Irish paintings in public collections, New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006, p. 201
'Is this possibly suffragette Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, or Isabel Thorne of the Edinburgh Seven?', Art detective website, 2016-2020

Reference

Wellcome Collection 45521i

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