Miss Mary Grant

Born 1830 (Circa)
Died 20 February 1908

Active: 1864 - 1893

Country of birth: Scotland

Country of death: England

Sculptor

Born in Kilgraston, Perthsire, Scotland. Her maternal grandfather was the seventh Earl of Elgin, her aunt was Mary Anne Grant, a portrait and landscape painter and her uncle was Sir Francis Grant, a highly successful portrait painter and President of the Royal Academy who was born in Edinburgh. She began sculpting in the 1850s and studied in Florence under Odoardo Fantachiotti in the early 1860s and with John Gibson in Rome. Grant then went to Paris and studied with Michel Mercier. She established a studio in London in the late 1860s and worked under the direction of John Foley in 1868-9. In 1887-8 she visited the USA.

From 1870 Grant received numerous commissions for portraits from Scottish and English aristocratic patrons and developed a speciality in high relief medallion portraits. Her more prestigious commissions included an important series of busts for the Rajah of Kapurthala. From the 1870s Grant executed a number of commissions for ecclesiastical sculpture, including works at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, Lichfield Cathedral and Winchester Cathedral. These last works, completed in the early 1890s marked the high point of her career. However, she continued to practice until the early 1900s. Grant died in Chelsea and probate was granted to Charlotte Augusta Grant (born c.1849 in Edinburgh), spinster, described as a Sister of Mercy in the Census Returns of 1911.

There are four works by Mary Grant in the National Portrait Gallery, including a marble bust after Thomas Woolner of Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, dating from 1893 (NPG 947).

This entry includes information taken from Helen Smailes' entry for Mary Grant in Delia Gaze, Editor, 'Dictionary of women artists', Vol. 1, pp. 604-6

Wealth at death: £968 12s. 7d.
Probate date: 22 April 1908

Citing this record

'Miss Mary Grant', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib6_1210677881, accessed 25 Mar 2023]