ANGELO GARINO (ITALIAN 1860-1945)
HALF LENGTH PORTRAIT OF MONA CAIRD
£3,276
Auction: Five Centuries: 15 November 2023 From 10:00
Description
Signed, inscribed and dated 'Nice 1918', oil on canvas
Dimensions
89cm x 71cm (35in x 28in)
Provenance
Provenance: Henryson-Caird Collection, Cassencarie House
Footnote
Note: Mona Caird was born Alice Mona Alison on 24 May, 1854 to an affluent family on the Isle of Wight. Also known by her married name Alice Mona Henryson-Caird, she was a writer and essayist dubbed a ‘priestess of revolt’ by the mainstream press at the time. A notorious First Wave feminist writer, she wrote seven published novels, short stories, a travel book, tracts on anti-vivisection, and many articles on the ‘Woman Question’ and other social and political issues. Her writings challenged Victorian conceptions of femininity, filial duty, marriage and domesticity.
In 1877, at the age of 23, Mona married James Alexander Henryson-Caird, who was eight years her senior. His estate, Cassencarie in Kirkcudbrightshire on the South coast of Scotland, figures prominently in her fictional works. Despite clearly being taken with the romantic Gothic mansion and its surrounding idyllic countryside, which provided the setting for a number of her novels, the stifling traditional life that came with it was not to her liking. This resulted in her only spending two months of the year there, while spending the rest in London or travelling abroad mostly on her own, with her husband stayin at Cassencarie to manage the estate. They lived parallel but distinctly different lives, with separate circles of friends that reflected their differing interests and views on specific issues. Their marriage produced a son, Alister James, who was raised mainly in Scotland with his father, and whose subsequent military career was at odds with Mona’s beliefs and writings.
Her work stimulated widespread discussion of such controversial subjects as undesired marital sex, birth control, unwanted pregnancy, single motherhood, wages for housework, public child care, free relationships and the right to adultery after marital breakdown. Mona Caird’s importance as an early feminist writer has recently been re-discovered by academics and Feminist scholars and her works provoke ongoing discussion on women’s issues.