Portrait of Lady Witt

This portrait had long been on loan to the Courtauld Institute, University of London, where it hung in the Witt Library, the great photographic archive documenting the history of painting which the sitter and her husband, Sir Robert Witt, started and, in 1944, gave to the Courtauld. Not long before his death in April 1982, her son, Sir John Witt, and his wife, presented it through the Art Fund to mark Sir John's retirement as Chairman of the Courtauld's Management Committee. The picture complements portraits of Sir Robert Witt by Oswald Birley and T. C. Dugdale which were painted in 193J and presented to the Courtauld through the Art Fund the following year. Sir Robert was one of the founders of the Art Fund in 1903, and served as its Chairman from 1920 to 1944.