Portrait of Miss Hetty Pettigrew 1908
Theodore Roussel
* 1847 in Lorient † 1926 in Hastings
Drypoint. Size of plate: 26.1 x 14.8 cm. Size of sheet: 29.1 x 18.2 cm.
Inscribed in pencil, "4.4".
Literature: Hausberg 80 II/I.
Total printing: about 21 impressions.
Fine impression with margins all around.
£ 1,800. -
Born in Portsmouth in 1867, Harriet, or Hetty, was the oldest of the three Pettigrew sisters, who became professional artist's models after they moved to London in 1884 from the West Country. Hetty was Theodore Roussel's model since the early 1880s, and by the early 1890s was living with her two sisters in Fulham, not far from the artist's home on Parson's Green (Hausberg, p. 107). Hetty was not just Roussel's model; she was his studio assistant, possibly his pupil, and also his mistress, giving birth to their child Iris around 1900.