Duncan Grant

Fanny Garnett (Duncan and Vanessa’s grand-daughter, twin of Nerissa)

The Estate of Fanny Garnett

Deborah Gage Fine Art, London (Deborah’s father Lord Gage rented Charleston to Clive Bell), where acquired by the family of the present owner, and thence by descent

In January and February 1914 Duncan Grant paid an extended visit to Tunisia. After a time spent in the capital, he went to the city of Tozeur in the south-west of the country, bordering the Sahara. He found a village pottery on the outskirts and worked there, sending back native pots for sale at the Omega Workshops, as well as at least two vases he had decorated with figures in black outline (both are now in Grant’s studio at Charleston).

The present painting shows a grove of palm trees, one of many in the district in Tozeur known as the Palmerie. Its dates were famous and formed a chief export business of the city. Grant also sent to London a box of oranges and lemons for Vanessa Bell which she and Roger Fry both painted.

 Richard Shone

This special group of Bloomsbury works was formerly in the collection of Frances ‘Fanny’ Garnett, who was the daughter of Angelica Bell and David Garnett, and granddaughter to Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The group encompasses paintings by both Grant and Bell, who were the central figures of the Bloomsbury group working in the early twentieth century. As the second generation of Bloomsbury, Fanny grew up surrounded by painting, writing and artistic experimentation, and these personal works include familiar, family scenes to the Garnett family, including a portrait of Vanessa Bell with Julian Bell (Angelica’s half brother) and a portrait of Nerissa Garnett (Franny’s twin).