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Between 2020 and 2021, the Merchant Taylors’ Company was privileged to have its First Lady Master, Mrs Jane Hall. The Company commissioned this full-length painting from portraitist Ruth Fitton.
Fitton evocatively paints the textures of Mrs Hall’s dress and her surroundings; the soft fur of her Livery robe, the glint of her Master’s medallion, and the delicately gilded mirror behind her. Her stance is authoritative and thoughtful, as she looks out of the composition to a point beyond our view. The scene is balanced, with Mrs Hall’s shoulders and profile framed by the golden mirror behind her. The convex gilded mirror depicted here was restored by Mrs Hall for the Company several years ago.
Symbolism is sensitively woven through the portrait; at the Master’s feet lies a Venetian plague mask. Mrs Hall requested the inclusion of the mask, to refer to the recent Covid pandemic. It recalls the centuries of previous Masters of the Merchant Taylors who’s masterships had also been marked by periods of historic pandemic; now, as then, the Company endured such times. Mrs Hall’s elegant cobalt dress was made by Jorden Barrett, tailor and Liveryman of the Company. This poignantly echoes the Company’s tailoring past, and its re-engagement with the tailoring trade through the Golden-Shears Competition.
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Ruth Fitton is a trained musician and self-taught portraitist, represented by London based gallery, Fine Art Commissions. She began this portrait by exploring the Hall, and was struck by the inclusion of Company heraldry within the architectural and decorative schemes of the building. She decided the Parlour - with its exquisite ceiling and carpet which are decorated with the Company coat of arms - was the ideal setting for this portrait.
Fitton made studies of Mrs Hall’s pose for the portrait in the Parlour, and worked from these details in her studio in the North of England. She transferred her work from these studies, to large format designs on paper, which she then depicted on the canvas that now hangs before us.
