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FRANCES RAYNER (1834 -
1889)
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
Left: Frances in her carte de visite of 1862.
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Emanuel Copinger (apparently known as Ernest to the Rayners) at Kensington, London in 1866. But 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, and her second, Ernest Edwin Rayner Copinger, was born
in 1871 at Windsor. This may have been on a visit to her parents, Ann and Samuel, as she didn't return to live in
Windsor until the late 1870s.
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.
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 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. |
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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 previously thought that Frances had possibly changed her mind and returned to professional painting as
the children grew older and less dependent. However, recent 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.
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 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'). Another word or abbreviation may follow the year, but we are
unable to make it out.
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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.
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 The last picture we know of, The Tomb, dated 1882, was auctioned by Bonham's in August 2006. We've only recently seen the picture, and prior to that believed it was from her earlier time on the continent. However, it's now evident that Frances visited her sister Margaret and made her own painting of the Dacre Monument at Herstmonceux (compare it with a painting on Margaret's page). It went 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 (like the one here) made it look dowdy. The real thing proved a relevation. It was so bright and fresh that the family ran a check that it was genuine - and are now delighted by their bargain.
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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.
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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.
Frances died in Windsor in 1889, a year before her mother, and was one of the youngest to die apart from Nancy.
Her husband married again and moved to Baltimore USA, and though her son died early, circa 1901 in London, her
daughter carried the Rayner female longevity gene and lived until 1956, when she died in Canada. Our thanks to
Paul Copinger for some Copinger detail here, and more on the Copinger family can be found at
www.copinger.org.uk
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.
PLACES TO LOOK
An example of her work is in the Art Gallery & Museum at Brighton.
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Harry Drummond, September 2006. |
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