NEILSON, Mrs Frederick (Mary Isabelle Gebhard)
Description:
Bust-length oval portrait, signed centre right ‘Muller-Ury’.
Location:
Present Whereabouts Unknown.
Bibliography:
Vogue, September 24, 1908, p.431 (reproduced) and mentioned in ‘Portrait Painters of Today’ on p.445.
The sitter was Mary Isabelle Gebhard born in New York on 29 May 1857 (her brother Freddie Gebhard, a client of Henry Duveen in 1889 according to the Duveen Archive, was infatuated with British professional beauty and actress Lily Langtry). She divorced Frederick Neilson (1849-1887) in March 1887 but he died on 27 July 1887 aged 37. She had three children. Her daughter Mary Isabella Nielsen (1878-1924) married Hollis Horatio Hunnewell (1868-1922), and had a son Hollis Hunnewell (1905-1982). Her daughter Cathleen married Reginald Vanderbilt. She died on 14 May 1928.
She was present at the wedding in Newport of Henry Osborne Havemeyer Jr, to Charlotte Whiting on 11 July 1900.
