Lady Gatti

When we moved in 1981 to live in Factory Cottage in the Rope Walk in Bideford, we were fortunate to have as friends our neighbours in the stripped pine shop next door, John and Mary Vigor. Fairly soon afterwards they took us to an auction in Meddon Street where a lady was clearing her stock from her business, consisting mostly of antiques and bric-à-brac. We did buy a few items: some painted oak bookshelves that now lives in the attic filled with children's books; a large, repaired maiolica plate that lurks in a corner in the drawing room; some sheet music including original compositions by her brother, who I think was surnamed Lubbock. I must check if the music is still in the music cabinet in the drawing room, or in the attic, or given away. Also in the drawing room, over the antique dolls' house, is a poorly-framed portrait in oils. I have always liked it unlike my wife who has consistently disliked it. The portrait is not signed on the front but on the back is written in capitals, possibly with charcoal, 'Lady Gatti, 1 Chelsea Rise, 'The Irishman'.

'The Irishman', by Lady Gatti.

I have often wondered who she was, and in the past research turned up Gatti's restaurant in London, which I think was for a time home to a huge painting by the Devonshire artist Benjamin Robert Haydon. I have just checked this and and indeed, it was his painting 'Curtius Leaping into the Gulf', now in the collection of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, and which I helped to move when I worked in the museum some years ago.

Curtius leaping into the Gulf, a large canvas, was begun on January 27, 1842, three days after the rubbing in of Alexander. It was completed in December and exhibited at the British. Institution the following February. This picture, perhaps the best of those he painted during his later years, had a varied history. Although Haydon recorded in his journal that he had sold it on May 3, 1843 ("but got a bill at six months, which in the city is awful"), he listed it in his will as still in his possession, though at the Pantheon with Newton's lien of 80 against it. For many years it adorned the billiard saloon of Gatti's Restaurant in the Strand. It is now at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter.

BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 
HISTORICAL PAINTER 
BY CLARKE OLNEY 

'Curtius Leaping into the Gulf' by Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Society artist finds the "perfect face".

Lady Gatti, the well known Society woman artist, has discovered what she declares to be the "perfect face". It is that of Mr Charles Atkinson, whom she is painting in her Kensington studio.

Lady Gatti at work in her studio on a head of Mr Charles Atkinson, who is seen sitting to her.

9 March 1933

I surmise that Lady Gatti must be the widow of Sir John Maria Emilio Gatti, who was born in 1872, knighted in 1928 and died in 1929, aged 57. He was a successful businessman, continuing the family concerns in ice cream and restaurants, but branching into electricity supply and consequently politics. Lady Gatti was born Lily Mary, the daughter of Dr Samuel Lloyd, and was an amateur artist and poet. She died in 1964 in Worthing aged 93. However, not all this seems possible to fully corroborate. Was she really 93 when she died? Was she really born in 1871? Did she have four sons and three daughters? There is, however, some information in Charles Fox-Davies's book 'Armorial Families' which does verify this:

GATTI (H. Coll.). Per fess or and gules, in chief an eagle displayed sable crowned with an antique crown of the first, and in base a cat passant argent langued azure. Mantling gules and or. Crest: On a wreath of the colours, in front of a plume of five ostrich feathers sable, a cat as in the arms. Motto — "Quod agis age." Eld. son of the late A. Gatti :— Sir John M. A. Gatti, Knt. Bach., M.A., *. 1872; m. 1897, Lily, d. of Dr. Samuel Lloyd, and has issue — (i) John M. Gatti, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Inner Temple, d. 1898 ; (2) Austen Gatti, Esq., d. 1904; (3) Stephen Gatti, Esq., i. 1905; (4) Cecil Gatti, Esq., d. 1906 ; and 3 daus. Res. — 23 Harley House, N.W.1 ; Sandycroft, Littlestone- on-Sea, Kent. Clubs — Garrick, Constitutional. 

In their marriage record she is named as Lilly Lloyd and he as John Marie Gatti. Both their forenames were subject to variation.

In the 1881 census we have some more clues:

Name:	Lilly Lloyd
Age:	10
Estimated birth year:	abt 1871
Relationship to Head:	Daughter
Father:	Samuel Lloyd
Mother:	Mary A. Lloyd
Gender:	Female
Where born:	Birmingham
Civil Parish:	St Giles in the Fields
County/Island:	London
Country:	England
Street address:	4 High St
Education: Employment status:	Subscribe now to see this information.
Occupation:	Scholar
Registration district:	St Giles
Sub registration district:	St Giles, North
ED, institution, or vessel:	4b
Neighbors:
Piece:	326
Folio:	12
Page Number:	18
Household Members:	Name Age Samuel Lloyd 41 Mary A. Lloyd 45 Samuel Lloyd 14 Violet U. Lloyd 13 Frank Lloyd 11 Lilly Lloyd 10 Lewis J. Lloyd 8 John H. Lloyd Robert H. Sanderson 36 Isabella Baggott 21 Kate Bould 20

A A Samuel Lloyd married a Mary Ann Lloyd in 11869 in West Bromwich.

Quite by chance I discovered this intriguing portrait of a Lady Angela Gatti by the Plymouth artist Robert Lenkiewicz with whom I was slightly acquainted. I met him again shortly before his death in 2002 at at exhibition, again at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter. I have not yet traced another Lady Gatti.