The re-appearance of this excellent example of Millais’ late portraiture has prompted new research into the identity of the sitter. The results are extraordinarily revealing.

The Wertheimer brothers, Charles and Asher, were dealers of considerable importance in late Victorian and Edwardian London. Their father was Samson Wertheimer (d. 1892), who came to England from Germany in 1830 and began an art and antiques business at 154 New Bond Street. Asher Wertheimer (1844-1918) worked initially alongside his father and then went on to run the business after his father’s death. Asher is best remembered today for commissioning no less than twelve portraits of members of his own family from the great American portrait painter John Singer Sargent (1854-1926), which were subsequently bequeathed to the Tate Gallery in 1922. Charles Wertheimer (1842-1911) dealt privately from his London homes, but was nevertheless a dealer and collector of considerable consequence, finally displaying his substantial collection at his house at 132 Park Lane. He was J.E. Millais’ most important patron in the 1880s and in his collection were at least ten works by Millais, including Cherry Ripe (1879, Private Collection), Cinderella (Lloyd Webber Collection) and Christmas Eve (sold Christie’s, London, 13 December 2012).

Charles had commissioned his own portrait from Millais in 1888. That picture passed to his second wife, Jessie, who later bequeathed it to the Louvre in Paris. It is now in the collection of the Musée D’Orsay. But in 1891 he commissioned this present portrait from Millais to hang as a pendant to his own. It first appeared at the New Gallery in 1891, where it was titled ‘Portrait of a Lady’ and was well received by critics there. The Times described it as ‘very powerful’ and ‘magnificently painted’. It commended the way the green of the sitter’s emerald necklace ‘shines out in splendid contrast to the dull red of the gown’. The Telegraph was similarly enthusiastic - and interestingly had already added in brackets the subtitle of ‘Mrs Charles Wertheimer’ to the picture when talking about it. The picture then went on to be shown at the Society of Portrait Painters in 1894 and at the Millais memorial exhibition in 1898. In both exhibitions it was unequivocally titled ‘Mrs Charles Wertheimer’.

However, what may well have been known in close circles in the 1890s, but which has been subsequently buried, is that – despite its titling - the woman depicted in this picture was not in fact Wertheimer’s wife, but his mistress, one Sarah Hammond. This has only just come to light again and is something of a revelation. Charles Wertheimer’s first wife was Frieda Flachfeld, with whom he had children. But not long after their marriage, sometime in the early 1870s, he left her and took up with Sarah Hammond, with whom he co-habited for some 20 years. They separated in the 1890s and later, on the death of his first wife in 1904, Wertheimer married again. His wife this time was one Jessica (Jessie) Trautz. Wertheimer died in 1911, but in his will he specifically left the present picture to his earlier mistress with the wording:“I leave Millais’ picture of Miss Sarah Hammond to that lady herself”. Thought on its first appearance at auction in the 1960s – presumably on account of its historic exhibition titles - to be of Wertheimer’s first wife, it has duly carried that incorrect title through all its subsequent public appearances. It is only recently that Wertheimer’s will has been revisited by the author Jean Strouse in the course of researches into the Wertheimer family. Further to that, research at Christie’s has revealed that the consignor to the 1960s auction was indeed a member of the Beausire family – a direct descendant of Sarah Hammond.

So what we are looking at is an intriguing piece of late Victorian social deception. For a man to commission a portrait of his mistress was hardly newsworthy by the end of the 19^th century. But for that man subsequently to pass the picture off as a likeness of his legitimate wife in public exhibitions is highly unusual. All the more so when one considers that his legitimate wife was alive and living in London a matter of a few streets away from those very exhibition spaces. History has not recorded what Wertheimer’s wife – or even his mistress – thought about this conscious mis-labelling. And of course we shouldn’t forget that Millais himself would have been well aware of the public appearances of this work of his – and thus well aware of the deception as well. Was this Wertheimer’s way of trying to cajole his first wife Frieda to give him a divorce? Or should we assume that Wertheimer, wanting to have the picture exhibited, felt the only way to avoid a scandal would be to have it titled as his wife? Maybe he even had the plan to have both his and Sarah Hammond’s pictures shown together – as they were in the Millais Memorial Exhibition (1898) – and simply felt that, if he titled the pictures ‘Portrait of Mr Charles Wertheimer and Portrait of Miss Sarah Hammond’ the society he moved in would not accept such a public statement about his marital infidelities.

So the wheel now comes full circle. This arresting image, strikingly composed and boldly executed by one of England’s greatest painters and with a long history of very favourable reviews must now be re-assessed in the light of its subject. The picture, for many decades known as Charles Wertheimer’s wife, can now be properly re-instated as a portrait of his long-time mistress Sarah Hammond. Therefore we the viewers are not only looking at a powerful piece of portrait painting by the rightly famous John Everett Millais, but also at a picture that intrigues every bit as much as a fascinating insight into the manners and morals of the wealthier middle classes of late Victorian society.

We are grateful to the Millais specialist Dr Malcolm Warner and to Jean Strouse, who is currently completing a book on John Singer Sargent's 12 portraits of Asher Wertheimer's family, to be published in 2023, for their help in compiling this entry.