Is this Nora Whitehall?

For about 40 years I have had this oil painting in various sorts of storage and knew it for longer on my parents’ walls. It is by my grandmother, the artist and poet who was, on her third marriage, Mrs Clifford Bax, née Vera May Rawnsley (and following marriages to Stanley North and Filson Young).

The undated painting is titled “The Old-fashioned Dress” (but the sitter isn’t named). I am pretty sure my parents (Paul and Margaret – Peggy – North) told me it’s a portrait of their friend, Nora Whitehall.

A label on the back of the painting says it was in a United Society of Artists show (again, undated), perhaps organised by the Art Exhibitions Bureau. Framed, the painting measures  74cm by 64cm, and unframed the image is 50cm by 40cm.

The Norths knew Nora and her husband Jack Whitehall pretty well in the 1950s. I think I visited the Whitehall family when we lived in a flat in Beckenham and the Whitehalls lived nearby. The Whitehalls were friendly, and their teenage sons Barry and Michael made a strong impression on me, being  respectively nine and six years older.

I won’t repeat here the uncontroversial but personal recollections I have of the two teenagers. What follows is in the public domain.

Michael has become famous as the father of his son, also a Jack, and as a successful theatrical agent. I have very recently bought Michael’s second memoir, Backing into the Spotlight: A Memoir (2018) on Kindle. From that I now know that his father followed one of my favourite trades: he was in ladies’ tailoring and not least the fur game.

I am as fascinated by Michael’s account of Nora Whitehall. At first she appears as a snob. But later in the book, his mother’s artistic ambitions and relationships are treated seriously and affectionately and she and they resonate.

Nora Whitehall and Vera Bax could easily have met through my parents, and could easily have enjoyed pursuing their acquaintance. Nora could easily have sat for Vera (not least when the Whitehalls moved up West). Lastly: I am struck that I have seen a photograph of Nora in Michael’s memoir which is strikingly similar to Vera’s unidentified sitter.

I have never succeeded in bringing this picture to the attention of people connected to Jack and Michael, or if I did, it wasn’t acknowledged. I think I’ll hang on to the picture until I downsize, or downsizing happens to me, when I guess it’ll go to a posh charity shop with this story attached as a sort of provenance.

The Whitehall family would be welcome to the painting. I am not interested in being paid for what is, at least for me, a sentimental matter. Nor do I seek any sort of acquaintance. But I would love to know if they think the painting is nothing to do with them.