Mary Middleton
Ethel Mary Middleton, 1930, Mark Symons, oil on canvas, REDMG: 2022.4.1, gift of the sitter’s family. Copyright: the artist. Photo: Reading Museum, Reading Borough Council
Mark Symons (1887–1835) was a remarkable painter and draughtsman who would be much more widely known had he lived longer.
Symons was a deeply religious man, best known for his large paintings of Christian scenes with people in contemporary clothes. But he needed to earn a living so he painted portraits of Reading people like Ethel as ‘pot boilers’ for a fee.
Ethel was the daughter of a Reading butcher, who went on to be a nurse locally. She did not like this portrait but it stayed above the Middleton family’s fireplace for several generations.
Note the frame. It was carved in pine by an amateur carpenter and painted gold to imitate an expensive gilt frame – nothing too good for this little girl!
Symons could not afford new canvases all the time. On the back of this canvas is a painting of the Madonna enthroned, with an adoring crowd around her.
