National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | The Edwardians

Florence, Lady Phillips (1863–1940) was the daughter of a South African land surveyor. In 1885, she met and married Lionel Phillips, who had become wealthy in the 1880s by mining diamonds. They lived in England from 1898 to 1906, during which time Lady Phillips developed a keen interest in art and bought contemporary works — by William Orpen, William Rothenstein, Walter Sickert and Philip Wilson Steer, as well as by Pissarro, Monet and Sisley. In 1919, her daughter Edith married the artist William Nicholson.