Ada Clara Whiting Miss Jessica Harcourt

Ada Whiting was 66 years old and had enjoyed critical success as a miniaturist when she painted Jessica Harcourt (1905–88). At just 18, Harcourt had been plucked from obscurity and dubbed by the Australian press ‘Australia’s loveliest girl’. Harcourt’s sister, the starlet Rene Harcourt, also sat for Whiting for the 1925 Archibald. Sadly, that portrait is now lost.

Viewed as the embodiment of grace and beauty, Harcourt embraced her celebrity and went on to become a fashion ‘mannequin’, writer and creator of beauty products. As an actor she is best known for her leading role in Australia’s most lauded – and expensive – silent film, For the term of his natural life (1927). Opera singer Nellie Melba was a lifelong friend and patron to Whiting. It is perhaps through Melba’s artistic associations that Whiting came to paint Harcourt.

Whiting’s love for miniature painting came from her father, British miniaturist George Cherry, who had learned the delicate art before coming to Australia in 1848. Whiting painted on ivory cameos with watercolour, using a magnifying glass to discern fine details and work swiftly. Her works were exhibited at London’s Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy and the Salon in Paris. Harcourt’s portrait featured at Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy in 1934, and is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.