Kathleen Olander (1889)
Kathleen Olander. Victorian painter in oils of portraits and figure subjects. Famous for her association with John Ruskin who wanted to marry her. Kathleen Olander, an art student, met Ruskin in the National Gallery, when she was 20 and he was 68. A passionate series of letters and marriage proposal ensued from Ruskin, but the affair came to nothing, and was hushed up. Ruskin’s letters only came to light in 1953, when Olander (now Mrs Prynne) published them in a volume entitled: “The Gulf of the Years.” The dog in this painting is apparently mentioned in her letters to Ruskin.