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Opening at Watts Gallery on 27 November (until 4 May 2026), Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters is the first exhibition to explore the lives, influence, and legacy of seven sisters who helped shape 19th century art, ideas and society in ways that continue to reverberate today.
While pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron remains the most celebrated of the sisters, this exhibition uncovers their collective influence. Drawing upon new research it will show how, through the bohemian artistic salon they created at Little Holland House in London, the Pattle sisters gained significant influence.
Central to this circle was George Frederic Watts (1817–1904) who became artist-in-residence at Little Holland House and an integral part of the Pattle family’s creative world. Writers, artists, musicians, and scientists of the day gathered in the lively salons hosted by the Pattle sisters, with Watts’s studio at the heart of the action.
Through paintings, photography, works on paper, and personal possessions, including rare loans from private collections, Women of Influence tells the story of the Pattle sisters and of ‘Pattledom’ – a term used by Vanity Fair author and friend William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) to satirise the dynamic and culturally influential world the women created.
Adeline (1812–1836), Julia (1815–1879), Sara (1816–1887), Maria (1818–1892), Louisa (1821–1892), Virginia (1827–1910) and Sophia (1829–1911) were born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, educated in Paris and lived in Britain. The daughters of James Pattle (1775-1845), a Supreme Court Judge for the East India Company, and Adeline Maria De l’Etang (1793–1845), who had French-Indian heritage, the sisters’ cultural hybridity remained central to their identity throughout their lives.
When Sara Prinsep (née Pattle) and her family moved from India to London in 1843, other sisters soon followed, and in 1851 the family settled in Little Holland House in Kensington, where they were joined by Virginia and Sophia—and G F Watts.
Together, they turned Little Holland House into one of the most vibrant cultural spaces in Victorian London. Presided over by the formidable Sara, a glittering array of elite figures gathered weekly at their unconventional Sunday salons. Frequent visitors included the artists Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), the writer Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886), the great violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), musician Sir Charles Hallé (1819-1895) and scientists Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882).
Many illustrious guests were immortalised in portraits by G F Watts and later through the lens of Julia Margaret Cameron: their work powerfully reflecting the spirit of artistic exchange that defined the world of Little Holland House.
Watts’s portraits of the Pattle sisters, painted at this time, are amongst his most striking, and included in this exhibition are Lady Dalrymple also known as Sophia Dalrymple (c.1851, Watts Gallery Trust), Portrait of Virginia Pattle (1850, Private Collection) and The Sisters (1856, Watts Gallery Trust). This double portrait of Sophia and Sara Pattle, with Indian-inspired dress and jewellery, gives visual expression to their Anglo-Indian heritage and unconventional spirit, setting them apart in Victorian society and highlighting their resistance to rigid social norms.
The sisters’ identity as Anglo-Indian women—expressed by the Indian garments they wore, the richly spiced food served to guests at Little Holland House, and by the Hindustani they spoke among themselves—is a thread running through the exhibition, offering a lens to explore legacies of empire, gender, and artistic influence.
Also explored in the exhibition are photography and the female gaze, focusing on the radical vision of Julia Margaret Cameron; salon culture—reimagining the domestic sphere of the Victorian drawing room as a nucleus of artistic exchange and intellectual debate; and creative lineage, in which the enduring impact of ‘Pattledom’ is considered. Maria Pattle was the grandmother of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, whose pioneering work shaped the Bloomsbury Group, while Sophia Pattle was the great-great-grandmother of acclaimed historian and podcaster William Dalrymple, who has contributed a new essay to the exhibition’s publication.
Corinna Henderson, Exhibitions Curator, Watts Gallery, and Co-Curator of the exhibition said:
“The Pattle sisters were bold, imaginative, and brilliantly interconnected forces who left a cultural legacy far beyond their time. Through art and exchange, they forged a unique space for women’s influence in a male-dominated world. This exhibition brings their extraordinary story to life, revealing how they helped shape the artistic and intellectual fabric of their time, from Victorian Britain to The Bloomsbury Group.”
Dr Gursimran Oberoi, independent scholar and Co-Curator of the exhibition, said:
“To say the Pattle sisters were the ‘It Girls’ of their era is an understatement. Their outgoing personalities, bohemian interests and multicultural traditions from India and France made them key players in a world determined by men. This exhibition paints a vivid portrait of the sisterhood illustrating their kaleidoscopic personalities, connected interests and female expression. It celebrates their dynamic influence both as disruptors of tradition and facilitators of change in art, fashion and high society which persisted well into the twentieth century.”
Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters will be published by Watts Gallery to accompany the exhibition. It is edited by Dr Emily Burns and includes essays by William Dalrymple, Dr Gursimran Oberoi, Dr Caroline Dakers, Jeff Rosen and Marion Dell.
Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters opens at Watts Gallery on 27 November.
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Notes to Editors
Watts Gallery
Watts Gallery Trust is an independent charity established in 1904 to enable future generations to connect with the art and ideas of George Frederic Watts, one of the leading artists of the nineteenth century, and his artist-wife, Mary Seton Watts.
G F Watts OM RA (1817-1904) was widely considered to be the greatest painter of the Victorian age. He became the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the artist’s ‘gift to the Nation’ made a significant contribution to the founding collections of Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery.
Mary Watts (1848-1939) was an artist, designer, writer, businesswoman and philanthropist. Her art supported and inspired the people around her, involving local communities in her projects. She was the creative powerhouse behind two significant enterprises: the Watts Chapel and the Compton Potters’ Arts Guild.
Today, Watts Gallery continues George and Mary Watts's legacy of Art for all by all. This vision to make art accessible to everyone is realised through a dynamic and multi-sensory programme of creativity, exhibitions, contemporary art projects and community engagement.