DudleyMall - Louise Rayner's Family

Rayner quick jumps: Ann Frances Louise Margaret Nancy Richard Rose Samuel Paintings Sources Dudley

FRANCES RAYNER (1834 - 1889)
Above: Frances in her carte de visite of 1862. Right: Bourges Cathedral, possibly before 1867. It sold for $180 in 2005 at Apple Tree Auction Center New York.

Frances was born in Piccadilly, London on 19th August 1834, and was christened at Newman Street Catholic Apostolic Church, St Marylebone, London, on 8th February 1835 - along with Samuel and Louise. In common with her siblings, she benefited from advice from other artists of the day, and like Nancy she received sketches from David Roberts from his trips abroad.

Compared with her sisters, Frances was a late entrant to exhibiting (being at least 25 years old) and, like her father, she specialised in architectural subjects with a religious leaning. She only had one painting exhibited in London, a watercolour titled "Church of St Andre, Antwerp" at the Suffolk Street Gallery in 1861 (when she was living in Brighton).

She travelled extensively on the Continent, possibly visiting some of the places David Roberts had drawn, and one of her paintings was of the Cathedral in the Mosque at Cordoba - though whether she actually visited it or based it on a drawing is unknown. It's also not clear how much of her travelling was before her marriage (as his second wife) to Charles Louis George Emanuel Copinger (known as Charles) at Kensington, London in 1866.

Following her marriage, she lived in Brussels for some years, and in the Copinger family was known as Fanny. Her first child, Annette Frances Copinger, was born there on 26th October 1867. The census of 1871 has them back in England

living at 43 Duncan Terrace, Islington, with Charles given as a clergyman of the Catholic Apostolic Church aged 49, Frances an artist at 30, Annetta now 3 and Charles's unmarried sister Clara (58) as governess. Frances's second child, Ernest Edwin Rayner Copinger, was born that year at Windsor, presumably with her parents, Ann and Samuel.

The picture at right shows Frances's two children, Annette (known as Netta in the family) with her brother Ernest. The picture is undated and carries no photographer's name. [Netta does not feature further in the story here, but she later went to live with her Aunt Rose, so there is more about her on Rose's page.]

If you've visited this site before, you will also have seen a picture of Frances with her husband and Netta as a young baby. Alas not! Elizabeth Yates of Melbourne Australia wrote to point out that the identical photo appears in a book on Edward VII with the caption Edward and [Princess] Alexandra with their first-born, Prince Albert Victor, in 1864. She also noted that there were two replicas of the Danish flag attached to the baby's dress, presumably because Princess Alexandra came from Denmark - and yes, the "Rayner" photo had them, too. Sadly, the Rayner family had an intruder in their collection! It is more understandable when (a) Frances did have a reasonable resemblance to the Princess, and (b) no other photograph was known to exist of her husband. The likely explanation is that a later relative saw the likeness in Frances and miscaptioned the photo.

This is Frances's painting of the Kapellbrucke und Wasserthurm, Luzern - the oldest wooden bridge in Europe. It seems rather faded, though it isn't entirely certain that this picture is in finished form, even though it has Frances's faint monogram at lower left, and her married name Copinger has also been incorporated into the painting (though neither show up in the image displayed here). [The bridge was built 1333, survived a destructive fire in 1993 and was subsequently restored.]

The brief mention of Frances in English Female Artists merely notes that: Frances (Mrs Copinger) gave up painting on her marriage, though she was thought to have continued to paint for her own pleasure until around 1875 (for example, it's possible she joined Louise on a European tour in 1873). However, we are relying mainly on Ellen Clayton's book here, which was published in 1876 when Frances's second child was only five years old. We initially thought that Frances had possibly changed her mind and returned to professional painting as the children grew older and less dependent. However, later evidence from the Copinger family is that the marriage broke up, and her return to Windsor noted above was occasioned by this. The cause of the break-up is unknown to either family's descendants but may have been personal to the two, since the families had been on friendly terms, as noted on Richard's page. However, the disunion could well have compelled (or released) Frances to take up professional painting again.

Above is an untitled painting of a (perhaps) Eastern European church kindly submitted to us by Glynne Rowlands of Surrey. The image had a few reflections to the left and these have been dulled rather than removed to minimise damage to the detail.

This unfortunately poor image (left) shows how Frances signed the picture towards the bottom right, as F.Copinger nee Rayner 1880 (with an acute accent over the 'nee' - on the wrong 'e' in this instance). Another word or abbreviation may follow the year, but we are unable to make it out.

Above, we are indebted to Peter Pentz who drew attention to this painting that went to auction in Aarhus, Denmark on 14th October 2004, through Lauritz.com.

No title was given for the painting, only that it was gouache, measuring 65 x 55 cm. However, Tom Kerr of Virginia, USA, has pointed out that the scene almost certainly shows Haddon Hall's Banqueting Hall

At left is a detail from the painting, showing how evenly Frances did the window diamond-leading, and how she represented the transition of light falling on the stonework.

Above right, we have another signature close-up. In this case, the date has been omitted, clipped off the bottom, or possibly just hidden by the frame, but it gives a clearer view of her signature style after her marriage - this time with the accent in the right place.

Frances certainly liked religious subjects, and this one is no different, though it does have a lovely whimsical suggestion of Tolkien or Disney about it. It's Canterbury Baptistery, and was signed (deep in the flowers) "F. Copinger née Rayner 1884". It was auctioned by Liveauctioneers for a Pittsburgh gallery on 10/10/2009, and nicely described as "a detailed atmospheric rendering of Canterbury Cathedral Baptistery". Estimated sale price was $500-$1000.

The Baptistery at Canterbury

The small image is The Baptistery, Canterbury Cathedral, 1855 a photo by British photographer Francis Bedford (1816-1894) from nearly 30 years before the painting. Note how Frances shortened the height. The photo is now copyright of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Go to their site to see a larger view of the V&A photo.

At right The Tomb, dated 1882 and auctioned by Bonhams in August 2006. Until we saw the picture, we thought The Tomb was a subject from her time on the continent. Instead, Frances made her own painting of the Dacre Monument at Herstmonceux when visiting her sister Margaret (Margaret's page has one of her own versions). It sold for a paltry £70, embarrassing even the buyer, Tom Kerr of Virginia. He bought it long-distance simply because paintings by Frances are rare and he wanted to have one by her. But he didn't expect much because its image made it look dowdy. The real thing proved a revelation. It was so bright and fresh that the family ran a check that it was genuine - and are now delighted by their bargain.

No mistake: it's the same scene but a different rendition, Gothick Knight's Tomb, Herstmonceux, kindly sent to us by Tina Duly. Not all artists had rich patrons. Most painted to put bread on the table, pay their rent, and save for a pensionless old age. There was no stigma in painting multiple copies, so if a picture was popular they were very happy to turn out more - but they had no copying method other than painting the scene again.

To stave off the boredom of exact repetition, artists might often challenge themselves to make the scene new to themselves and individual for the clients. And although they would remember their earlier version, they would probably not have it to hand and would therefore work from their studies of the scene. They might also want to correct things they thought were unsatisfactory in the first painting. Here Frances has painted quite different light conditions, the banners have been adjusted to show more stonework, the stone decoration above the tomb is slightly different, and so on. In some versions the chest might be shut or different elements of its contents in view - oddments of armour, chalices, etc. In one, the clover shape at the top of the window has been completely changed - remember, this is art, not photography. So if you come across a version that is very much the same style but has lots of detail differences, that will not make your version a forgery. But in the Rayners' case - as we have learned several times - if you don't have a signature it could well bring into question which member of the family actually painted it!

After the marriage break-up in the late 1870s, Charles Copinger married again and moved to Baltimore USA. The split left Frances with two young children and possibly a difficulty in housing and caring for them. Certainly her daughter Netta was passed into the hands of Nancy's sister Rose around 1879, and Rose's page and its footnote outline what happened to her in her long life. In 1881 Frances and Ernest were lodgers with Henry Sevenoakes (a plumber) and his family at Acre House, Bachelors' Acre, New Windsor.

Frances Copinger - Barons Chapel Haddon Hall

In common with most of the family, Frances painted Baron's Chapel at Haddon Hall. Jonathan Cuff kindly sent us this example, which had been in his family for forty years (and possibly much longer). He thought it had been acquired by his grandfather, who had lived in Barnes, London.

Points of interest are the figure detail in the window, the texture given to some of the woodwork, and the 1883 signature (not 1885 even though it looks like it) of simply F. Copinger.

Frances died a year before her mother in New Windsor in the September quarter of 1889. She was thus the youngest adult of her generation to die apart from Nancy. By that stage Ernest was about 17. Another of Frances's sisters, Grace, had married into the Catty family and had five children of her own at 24 Rye Hill Park in Camberwell, and she took Ernest into her family. By 19, Ernest had become a merchant's clerk. He produced at least one very acceptable oil painting, and wrote articles in the press, but little more is currently known about him, except that he died (cause unknown) towards the end of 1904 when he would have been about 25.

Our thanks to Paul Copinger for some Copinger detail here, and more on the Copinger family can be found at www.copinger.org.uk

Finally, a "maybe? ...but actually not" picture. The painting below was on sale in September 2004 at Treadwell Gallery of Oakland Park, Illinois. It was listed as "F. Rayner (German, 20th century), In the Tyroleon Alps [sic], c. 1930...". Initially we thought it might be a guessed caption (something done frequently with Louise's paintings). Support for this hypothesis came from the family, as indeed Frances did turn out one or two alpine pictures and unfinished canvasses still survived.

However, since the picture here first appeared on this page, more have turned up and images of them have been sent to us for comment. In at least one case, the photographs made it obvious that the painting dated a long time after Frances's death, and the others were of a closely similar style. So if you are in possession of a winter wonderland painting signed by one F. Rayner, German artist, then that is exactly what you've got. Sorry, it isn't by Frances.

SALES
Sales are infrequent, and may not occur at auction. Those noted above appear to be the most recent. Only the price given is known to us, so it may include or exclude seller's premium, buyer's premium, tax, whatever.

PLACES TO LOOK
An example of her work is in the Art Gallery & Museum at Brighton.

Harry Drummond, May 2011.

Please take note: we claim no art expertise, and in no way do we offer provenance for any paintings. What you see here was compiled out of interest in Louise Rayner's paintings and those by her family, but is based on sometimes very fragmentary evidence. As such, it is inevitable that there will be errors, though we naturally hope to reduce these over time.

We would gratefully receive any information or corrections that will help us to fill the gaps and resolve unproved links - for example confirmation of dates of birth, death, etc., and details of other addresses the family lived at (and roughly when). Images of any of the family's paintings would also be very welcome. Thank you!

Email DudleyMall at: dudleymall@dudleymall.co.uk
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FRANCES RAYNER (1834 - 1889)