Blue and Gold

Caroline Isabel Robertine Heriot was born in London, the daughter of Robert Heriot, who was a senior partner at Hambros bank from the 1860s. The family lived in considerable comfort at 13 Hyde Park Gardens and later at 108 St George’s Square, SW1. It also seems to they had country homes at Mulgrave House, Surrey, and Cliff House, Salcombe. For some of her working and exhibiting career Robertine lived close to her brother’s house in Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Heriot studied under Theodore Roussel and his influence is strongly evident in all her work. She exhibited at the Goupil Gallery, International Society, London Salon, New English Art Club, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and in Liverpool and Glasgow. She painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes in oil but perhaps is best known for her etchings and colour intaglio prints, a technique much favoured by Roussel. A number of her prints are in the collection of the British Museum. It is not known exactingly what Heriot’s relationship was with Roussel. She exhibited along side him at various venues and the British Museum catalogue says she was his pupil. She was clearly in a financial position to act as an important patron and was certainly a close friend of the artist and great admirer of his work, being eager to promote both his paintings and prints and his posthumous reputation. In 1927 Robertine and her sister-in-law, Mrs Walter Heriot, purchased Roussel’s famous and controversial painting The Reading Girl from the Stedelick Museum and presented it to the Tate Gallery in memory of the artist. She also gave one of Roussel’s prints to the collection of the British Museum and in 1947 she presented Brighton Museum and Art Gallery with Roussel’s still life, Grey and Silver. Robertine Heriot never married. She died at Moat Cottage, Fincham, near King’s Lynn in 1962.