Lot 169: Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike, Lady Birley , 1900-1980 still life with mushrooms, figs and flowers oil on canvas

signed and dated l.r.: Rhoda Birley/ 1967 oil on canvas

25.5 by 35.5 cm.; 10 by 14 in.

Given by Lady Birley to Sir David and Lady Scott as a wedding present in 1970

Rhoda Birley was the wife of the fashionable and distinguished portrait painter Sir Oswald Birley who painted many prominent men and women in the inter-war period. Oswald and Rhoda Birley lived at Charleston Manor in Sussex and in Wellington Road, St John's Wood. Rhoda Birley was a talented gardener, and had known both Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville West (each of whom advised her on the creation of her own garden at Charleston). She was also a close friend of the Scotts. Valerie Scott photographed Rhoda Birley in the garden at Charleston (Fig 1. for more information see Ursula Buchan, Garden People, Valerie Finnis & the Golden Age of Gardening, 2007 p.83).