Born Annabel Grant Duff, daughter of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, one-time governor of Madras.  Annabel spent some time in India as a child.  in 1895 she married financier Frederick Huth Jackson.  She befriended both Sargent and Lady Agnew.  In 1932 she published her memoirs, A Victorian Childhood.  

From: Peter de Loriol 
<P Deloriol @   aol.com> 
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003  

Dear Natasha,  

I am a grandson of Annabel Huth Jackson.  
You might be interested to know that the Sargent-Jackson connection is somewhat greater than most people think. My grandmother [Mrs Huth Jackson's] great niece Flavia Grant Duff married John Ormond, Great nephew of JSS. He and his brother, Richard [one of the leading authorities and author on Sargent's work] own most of the JSS pictures, except for my own, a pencil drawing of my grandmother by JSS!  

Fri, 14 Feb 2003  

I'm her youngest grandson! not yet 50, but coming up here close. 

She was, according to my mother who was the youngest of her brood and stayed with her until she died, extremely bright, devoted to her husband, very liberal (she put on his tombstrone 'a great merchant, a great squire and a great lover'!...and that was in 1920!  She was very ambitious for her children, (she always wanted to marry them off to a Duke or a peerage, and she managed to). She was also, but be very careful here, a lover of all things German - she admired Hitler, as so many of her class did. She was also a poet of some standing and knew all the people of her time.  

You may know about the biography of her done by my aunt, Anne Fremantle, entitled 'A Three Cornered Heart'.  This was a wild success in America in the 1970s and can probably be borrowed from any good library.  

Most of the English society ladies JSS painted were all connected, i.e related in some way or other. His best friend Helleu painted a very good one of my paternal Grandmother, Countess de Loriol, entitled "The Feathered Hat".

Thu, 20 Feb 2003

The painting of my grandmother Huth Jackson is in American Hands. It is currently owned by the daughter of Hans Sonne, a sometime colleague of my grandfather who inherited it from his estate.

All the best,  

Peter de Loriol  
   
Notes: 
Special thanks to Peter de Loriol, in the UK, for his letter about his grandmother and Matt Davies, of Kansas City, for sending me the image and brief bio; both friends of the JSS Gallery.  

The image came from "The Portrait of a Lady: Sargent and Lady Agnew", by Julia Rayer Rolfe, with David Cannadine, Kenneth McConkey, and Wilfred Mellers.  It was published by the Trustees of the National Galler of Scotland as the catalogue for the exhibit of the same name which was held there 8 August-19 October 1997.  

• See the year in review 1907