The Sisters by George Frederic Watts RA (1817-1904). 1852-53. Oil on canvas. H 231.1 x W 144.8 cm. Collection: Watts Gallery — Artists' Village. Accession no. COMWG 137, gift from Mrs Michael Chapman (née Lilian Macintosh), 1946 (originally part of the Memorial Collection). Reproduced here via Art UK under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Commentary and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Dr. Gursimran Oberoi, co-curator of the Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters exhibition at the Watts' Gallery, Compton (27 November - 4 May 2026), explains that the sisters were Sophia Dalrymple and Sara Prinsep, and that the portrait, painted on the balcony of Holland House in Kensington, introduces "two of the seven Pattle sisters upon their entry into London society as Anglo-Indian women complete with Kashmiri shawl, rakhis (sacred bracelets tied by siblings), and large almond shaped eyes."
After Sara and her family had come to London from India in 1843, her other sisters soon followed her, "and in 1851 the family settled in Little Holland House in Kensington, where they were joined by Virginia and Sophia — and G. F. Watts. Together, they turned Little Holland House into one of the most vibrant cultural spaces in Victorian London" (Press Release for Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters). It would be hard to overstate their importance to the cultural scene of the time. As Caroline Dakers puts it, "The salon created by Sara Prinsep at Little Holland House made bohemia respectable, bringing together artists, writers and scientists with politicians, landowners and civil servants: in short, almost anyone who cared, or professed to care, for contemporary culture" (24).
Related Material
- A Curator's Perspective on Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters at the Watts Gallery, Compton, 27 November 20256 - 4 May 2026
- Lady Dalrymple (Sophia, née Pattle)
Bibliography
Dakers, Caroline. The Holland Park Circle: Artists and Victorian Society. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999.
The Sisters, George Frederick Watts (1817-1904). Art UK. Web. 12 December 2025.
Created 12 December 2025