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

Nerissa Garnett (1946-2004) was the daughter of the writer David Garnett and Angelica, daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

As children she and her twin sister Frances (Fanny Garnett) spent holidays with their grandparents at Charleston. Although posing for the painters was sometimes tedious, it brought them much appreciated pocket money. As a teenage girl in a white blouse, Nerissa was again painted by Grant, perhaps his most accomplished image of his granddaughter (the painting is at Charleston).

Nerissa went on to attend the Slade School of Art. Her striking portrait of her father is in the National Portrait Gallery.

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).