Left: Portrait of Clara Sentance, c.1871. Watercolour and gouache or tempera over black chalk on paper; 12 1/16 x 9 1/2 inches (30.6 x 24.3 cm). Collection of the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, purchased on the Fellows Fund, accession no. 1973.20. Image courtesy of the Morgan Library & Museum. Right: Portrait of Emma Sentance, by Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919). Watercolour and gouache on paper; 11 13/16 x 9 7/16 inches (30 x 24 cm). Private collection (image believed to be in the public domain).
These two portraits were completed at a time when Murray was still acting as a studio assistant to Edward Burne-Jones. Clara and Emma Sentance were the daughters of Murray's landlady at 1, Effingham Street in Pimlico where he lived from 1867 until 1871. Murray was obviously attracted to these two beautiful daughters. He exhibited a watercolour portrait of Emma at the Dudley Gallery in 1871, no. 347, and is known to have completed two highly finished watercolour portraits of Emma, both in profile to the left, and both now in private collections. It is uncertain which of these two portraits was the one Murray exhibited at the Dudley.
A profile drawing of Emma in pencil and brown wash that relates to one of these watercolours sold at Christie's, London, on 6 November 1995, part of lot 89. It is now in the collection of Scott Thomas Buckle in London. A brown wash watercolour drawing of Emma, full face and dated 11[18]70, sold at Mallams Auctioneers, Oxford, on 18 July 2012, lot 356: this is now in a private collection in Wimbledon. Murray also exhibited a portrait of the girls' younger brother, Henry Harby Sentence, as Portrait of a Boy, at the Dudley Gallery in 1872, no. 69. It is therefore surprising that he didn't exhibit his Portrait of Clara Sentance at that same institution. It would certainly have been highly appropriate for the Dudley, being very much an early example of Aesthetic Movement portraiture.
Clara with her red hair and red dress is presented in a frontal view with her head tilted slightly to her right. The background is of pink roses and a rose bush and is reminiscent of early wallpaper designs by his friend William Morris. It was perhaps influenced by the floral backgrounds in early Aesthetic Movement paintings such as D.G. Rossetti's groundbreaking Boca Baciata of 1859, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts [accession no. 1980.261], and particularly by G.F. Watts's Portrait of Helen Rose Huth of the early 1860s, that sold at Christie's, London on 5 June 2008, lot 49.
It is uncertain whether Murray chose pink roses solely for decorative reasons or to express a meaning in the Victorian language of flowers. Light pink roses are associated with grace, gentleness, joy, and happiness. Based on their portraits the Sentance girls were obviously very alluring, so it is no wonder Murray was entranced by them. On May 30, 1874 Murray wrote from Rome to William Silas Spanton, his friend and former fellow art student, and for a time also fellow-lodger at Effingham Street, confessing: "I have never got over the interest that Clara & afterwards Emma excited in me some years ago - Clara especially I used to think a very nice girl until she went out to work... She changed entirely afterwards but doubtless still retains her prettiness" (qtd. Tucker 175).
Bibliography
British Pictures. London: Maas Gallery, 2000, cat. 73.
Buckle, Scott Thomas. "Collecting Charles Fairfax Murray Drawings." PRS Review XXXII (Summer 2024): 29-35.
Elliott, David B. Charles Fairfax Murray. The Unknown Pre-Raphaelite. Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild Ltd., 2000. 24 & 217n.35.
Fine Victorian Pictures, Drawings and Watercolours. London: Christie's (November 6, 1995): lot 89, 56.
Portrait of Clara Sentance. The Morgan Library & Museum. Web. 24 February 2026.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Seventeenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1972-1974. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1976. 174.
Tucker, Paul. I Giardini delle Regine: Of Queen's Gardens: The Myth of Florence in the Pre-Raphaelite Milieu and in American Culture (19th-20th centuries) . Margherita Ciacci and Grazia Gobbi Sica Eds. Livorno, Italy: Sillabe, 2004, cat. 16, 175.
Victorian and Traditionalist Pictures. London: Christie's (June 5, 2008): lot 49. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5089474?ldp_breadcrumb=back
Created 23 February 2026