Painted in 1918, Dicksee’s Portrait of Mrs Austin Mackenzie epitomises the glamour of an opulent Edwardian era that, unbeknownst to artist and sitter, was by then in its dying days as the First World War entered its final months.

‘Mamie’ Mary Frances Mackenzie, née Linton (1870-1948) was the eldest of three daughters of Captain James Henry Wingfield Linton. In a colourful unpublished memoir, Mary confessed that she wed her second husband in 1913 because he wanted to marry her and ‘…as I had no cook, and he had, I thought it would be the best thing to do’. Mary recalled her twenty-two sittings in Dicksee’s Greville Place studio fondly. ‘The studio was full of beautiful things, pictures, books etc.’ (Unpublished memoirs of M.F. Mackenzie, 1943, vol. III, pp. 56-57; quoted in Toll, 2016, p. 177).

A rather mischievous character Mary at one point requested that Dicksee paint her arm resting on the head of ‘Rubie’, her beloved Labrador but he refused, claiming that he could not paint dogs. Mrs Mackenzie teased Dicksee that after the Academy she would ‘get an animal painter to put Rubie in’, but ‘… this upset him very much as it seems he admired my arms very much and he told me the painting of my left arm was the best bit of painting he had ever done in his life.’ (op. cit., p. 174).

The portrait demonstrates Dicksee’s skill as a portraitist and is a technical masterclass in its execution of the fabrics of her delicate lace-trimmed dress, and the ornate embroidery of the cushions and chaise longue on which Mrs Mackenzie is seated.