[citation needed] At Peterhof, she heard the Court Orchestra play on summer nights and in 1914 she was introduced to the four Grand Duchesses, who were selling flags there in aid of the Russian war effort.

Consequently, she had to queue in line at the local railway station to ask the guardsmen of the arriving and departing trains to bake them in engine fires.

[citation needed] Eventually, the family settled in London, where Mary Chamot's mother taught French and German and her father translated Russian plays and novels by writers such at Chekhov and Leskov.

It was at this time that she became friendly with the two Russian avant-garde artists and Ballets Russes designers Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) and Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964).

[citation needed] Her friendship with the two artists led to her publishing an essay on their early work in Burlington Magazine in 1955.

In 1961, Chamot, alongside Camilla Gray, curated a major retrospective exhibition of their work for the Arts Council of Great Britain.