Portrait in coloured crayon of Charlotte Maria Toynbee, née Atwood, by the American artist Anna Lee Merrit. Toynbee studied at Oxford University, where she met her future husband, the economic historian Arnold Toynbee. After her husband’s death Toynbee served on the committee aiming to create a settlement in Oxford, which resulted in Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, London (named after Arnold Toynbee). Toynbee was Poor Law Guardian as well as managing and contributing to the finances of the female Oxford college Lady Margaret Hall for forty years. This drawing is possibly for a study for an oil portrait of Toynbee by Merrit, in 1908.
