Tampilkan postingan dengan label Philip Alexius de Laszlo. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Philip Alexius de Laszlo. Tampilkan semua postingan
Minggu, 08 Januari 2012
Rabu, 04 Januari 2012
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Mrs Herbert Asquith, later Countess of Oxford and Asquith
Price Realized
£11,250
($17,381)
signed and dated 'P. A [?] LASZLO/1909' (lower right)
oil on canvas
36¼ x 28 in. (92 x 71 cm.)
Margot Asquith married Herbert Asquith in 1894. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1905 and Prime Minster in 1908, holding that post until 1916. Born the daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, she was a prominent member of the intellectual circle known as 'The Souls', and was noted for her charm, unconventionality and wit. She was a great admirer of de László, and hoped that her husband would also be painted by him (regrettably this never happened). Facing the need for funds, she sold the portrait at Christie's in the middle of the war, and died two years thereafter, aged 81.
Selasa, 03 Januari 2012
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of Jean Garmany Brandt (b. 1867)
Price Realized
£15,000
($23,175)
signed and dated 'de Laszlo/1928' (lower left)
oil on canvas
34 x 26½ in. (86.4 x 67.3 cm.)
This portrait was the last one de László completed of the Brandt family. Jean 'Janie' Champion Garmany was born to a prominent family in Savannah, Georgia. In 1887, she secretly married Heyward Hall McAllister, the youngest son of Ward McAllister, founder and leader of The Four Hundred. When their union was discovered in 1892, her father-in-law publicly disapproved of the match arguing that his son could not support her, and had no prospect of employment. In reality Ward McAllister had hoped that Heyward would marry someone with considerable wealth to alleviate his own financial troubles. The marriage was never consummated, and the young couple divorced in 1892.
Jean Garmany's mother took her to Europe and North Africa to avoid the press and the weight of the scandal. While walking in Egypt, Jean met and fell in love with a young banker, Augustus Brandt (1871-1952). Together they had two daughters, Jean (born 1900) and Gwendolen 'Gwen' (born 1904), and settled at Castle Hill, Bletchingley, in Surrey. There, they welcomed and supported for a time their nephew, the photographer Bill Brandt.
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of a lady wearing a peaked headdress (recto); Portrait of Sir William Younger, 1st Bt. (1862-1937), of Auchen Cast
Price Realized
£7,500
($11,588)
signed, inscribed and dated 'P. A. de Laszlo/London/1913.XI' (lower right)
oil on board
19 x 15 in. (48.3 x 38.1 cm.)
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
To date it has not been possible to identify the sitter in this study-portrait. Her peaked headdress and intimate pose contrast with László's usual portrait commissions and make it a personal work, probably painted for the artist's own pleasure. Since it was his habit to paint alla prima and to discard the works he was not pleased with to start afresh, it was not unusual for him to paint on both sides of his board. A discarded attempt to capture the likeness of Sir William Younger, 1st Bt. (1862-1937), of Auchen Castle, can be found on the reverse.
Sabtu, 10 Desember 2011
Senin, 28 November 2011
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Mrs Philip de László, née Lucy Guinness
Price Realized
£16,250
inscribed 'To Connely from Phillip [sic] 1901 Burton Hall'
oil on board
24 x 19 in. (48 x 61 cm.)
Painted in 1901.
Lucy Madeline Guinness (1870-1950) was the eleventh of the twelve children of Henry Guinness of Burton Hall, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin, and his wife Emelina Brown. Having met Philip de László in 1892, it was not until his fame and wealth were solidly established that he was finally granted her hand in marriage in Stillorgan Church, on 7 June 1900.
This intimate portrait of Lucy was painted the following year, when the couple made a visit to the family home in Ireland after the birth of their first son, Henry, in June 1901.
'Connely', the dedicatee of this portrait, was the nickname of Lucy's younger sister, Constance.
We are grateful to Dr Caroline Corbeau-Parsons for writing this catalogue entry, which is included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné online (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com)
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the ,
catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor, and Matt Davies the American Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Mrs George Whitney, née Martha Beatrix Bacon 1926
Price Realized
£15,000
inscribed, signed and dated: 'first study/of Mrs Whitney 1926 de László' (middle right)
oil on canvas
38¼ x 29¾ in. (97.1 x 75.6 cm.)
This is de László's first attempt at painting Martha Bacon Whitney, whose finished portrait, completed in February of the same year, remains untraced. The artist was already acquainted with her family, having painted the study-portrait of her father, Colonel Robert Bacon, in 1910, when the latter was serving as the United States Ambassador to France. At that time, Bacon was hoping de László could also paint his daughter, but the artist only had two days to spare in Paris, and aside from painting Bacon's study-portrait, the priority assigned to de László was to produce the likeness of Theodore Roosevelt, who had recently left office, and was staying at the Embassy during his post-term European tour.1 Nevertheless, Bacon was still keen for him to paint Martha. On 19 October 1910, he asked him when the commission would be carried out,2 and again, the following month, he reiterated: 'I hope that some day we shall find time for you to paint my daughter.'3 De László did, but not in Robert Bacon's lifetime.4
It was during his third trip to America that de László painted Martha, by that time married to George Whitney. De László arrived in New York on board the Aquitania on 16 October 1925, and did not leave until April 1926, the demand for his portraiture being so great. He painted Martha Bacon Whitney in February 1926, around the same time as her sister-in-law, the widow of Elliott Cowdin Bacon, née Hope Norman.
In its unfinished state, the present portrait highlights de László's alla prima technique, painting wet-on-wet onto the canvas, and, as he liked to describe it, 'drawing with the brush'. His method conveyed freshness to his style, and relied on an ability to paint at speed. If he was not entirely pleased with a portrait, he did not labour on it, but simply discarded it to start afresh on a new canvas. In this instance however, he signed this first version, which would suggest that he was not necessarily completely dissatisfied, but preferred to explore a different composition. Indeed, in the final version, he portrayed Mrs Whitney on a chair, looking full face to the viewer.
Martha Beatrix Bacon was born in 1890, the only daughter of the four children of Colonel Robert Bacon and Martha Waldron Cowdin. Both her parents had ancestors among early settlers: in Massachusetts on her father's side, whilst her mother had roots in New York. Martha was educated at St. Timothy's School, Stevenson, Maryland. On 10 May 1911, when her father was Ambassador to France (1910-1912), she was presented at Court to King George and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace. On 2 June 1914, she married George Whitney (1885-1963), son of George and Elizabeth Whitney of Boston, at the Church of the Advent, Westbury, Long Island. The following year George joined the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., from which he retired as chairman of the board in 1955. Around 1915, the couple built a house, "Home Acres", designed by Delano and Aldrich, on her father's estate, "Old Acres", Westbury, Long Island, New York. They also owned a townhouse in New York: East 74th St South Side. George and Martha Whitney had four children: George Jr. (born c. 1915), Robert (born 1917), Martha Phyllis (born 1918), and Elizabeth (born 1921). Martha Whitney was particularly active in the New York Public Library, the Speedwell Society, the English-Speaking Union, Planned Parenthood, the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association and the Nassau Hospital, Mineola. She died in that hospital on 16 October 1967.
Biographical sources: The New York Times, 11 May, 1911; 3 June 1914; 23 July 1963; 16 October 1967
We are grateful to Dr Caroline Corbeau-Parsons and Matt Davies for writing this catalogue entry, which is included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné online (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com)
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the catalogue raisonn of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor, and Matt Davies the American Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
1 This portrait was bequeathed by the Bacon family to the White House in 1971.
2 DLA053-0018, op. cit.
3 DLA053-0017, op. cit.
4 He died in 1919.
Minggu, 27 November 2011
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of Doña María Mercedes de Alvear
Price Realized
£97,250
signed, inscribed and dated 'de László Paris 1921 XII' (lower left)
oil on canvas
48 x 36 in. (122 x 91.5 cm.)
In his lifetime, Hungarian-born Philip de László was recognised as one of the most important portrait painters of his generation. His oeuvre is currently undergoing a reassessment, and he is being appreciated again as one of the last proponents of the grand manner tradition. A display has recently been dedicated to him at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and some of his portraits have featured in exhibitions at Tate Britain (Van Dyck, 2009), and the Royal Academy of Arts ( Treasures from Budapest, 2010).
The present portrait was commissioned by Mercedes de Alvear's parents, to hang in their palatial home a few miles out of Buenos Aires, close to the estuary of Río de la Plata. When Princess Marie Louise visited Argentina in 1930, she was shown their residence and her admiration for de László's portrait was such that Sir John Millington-Drake,1 then Chargé d'Affaires at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires, wrote to the artist to convey her deep impression to him. He added: 'May I say how very much I also admired it, having know its subject well. Fernando Alvear, the younger son whom I also knew well in those days told us that it was one of your own favourite portraits It is certainly a wonderful and inspiring likeness of a girl of classic countenance and exceptional distinction'.2
De László completed Mercedes de Alvear's portrait in December 1921 in Paris, during a period of intense work. As his wife Lucy noted in her diary, 'from Friday the 18th Nov: when P. arrived in Paris till yes[ter]day morning the 19th Dec. P. painted 8 pictures - ! 4 big canvases [including] Melle Alvear'.3 He painted most of his American and South American sitters in the French capital: it is significant that during his 1921 stay, three of the large canvases mentioned by Lucy de László were of Argentinians.4
De László kept a studio in Paris at 31 rue Jean Goujon, but he also regularly painted in the duc de Guiche's hótel particulier at 42 bis Avenue Henri Martin. Armand de Guiche (later 12th Duc de Gramont), was one of his closest friends, and an artist himself. It is likely that de László used his studio in the winter of 1921, as Lucy recorded that Guiche organised a private exhibition of her husband's new portraits at his home on Monday 19th December. She described the event as a 'thundering success',5 to which 130 people came.
De László, wishing to show Mercedes's portrait to a wider public, wrote to her father in May 1924, asking if he could have it on display at a small exhibition to be held at the Franz von Riel Salon in London. It would have been particularly appropriate, as the show was instigated by a cousin of Mercedes, as explained in The Studio:6 'On the initiative of the art-loving wife of H.E. the President of the Republic, Doña Regina Pacini de Alvear,7 there has been opened, for charitable purposes, an exhibition of portraiture by contemporary masters which has many interesting features. Argentine families do not, as a rule, lend their pictures for public show, but the social success of the innovation has only been equalled by the artistic curiosity to see how men like László, Shannon, Dagnan-Bouveret, and Renoir, interpreted the Argentine grande dame. There were half-a-dozen László's on the walls...'
However, Carlos Maria de Alvear replied that he could not lend the portrait of his daughter and expressed his surprise that de László had not requested it before for an earlier exhibition at Knoedler's in Paris 1922. He wrote: '...its absence, I assure you, astonished many people who considered this portrait, as you have yourself just admitted it in your letter, as one of your most beautiful masterpieces',8 suggesting that he took offence to that omission.
María de las Mercedes de Alvear y Elortondo was born in Buenos Aires on 25 March 1896, the youngest of nine children of Carlos Mara de Alvear y Fernández Coronel (1850-1928) and Mercedes Elortondo Armstrong (1859-1940). She was named after her elder sister, María Mercedes, who had died in 1893, aged seven. The sitter's father was grandson of the famous Argentinian General Carlos María de Alvear,9 military hero of the Spanish American War of Independence and victor of the Battle of Ituzaingó in 1810. He was also first cousin of Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear,10 President of Argentina from 1922 to 1928. Carlos Mara de Alvear was a wealthy Argentinian farmer with vast extensions of land in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. As for Mercedes Elortondo, she was a member of a well-known aristocratic family from Buenos Aires but she grew up mostly in Paris where many Argentinians used to spend the winter.
In 1911 the sitter's father visited the International Fair in Paris with his two brothers-in-law, of the Errázuriz and Bosch families, and the three of them engaged the famous French architect, Réne Sargent11 to design substantial family residences in Buenos Aires for them: the Palacio Errázuriz is now the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Palacio Bosch is the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires and the Alvear Palace, called Sans Souci, the largest of them all and taking four years to build, was opened with great celebration in 1918.12
We are grateful to the Philip de László catalogue raisonné team for writing this catalogue entry, and to Ignacio Solveyra for his help with the biography. This portrait is to be included in the de László catalogue raisonné online (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com). Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
1 Whose wife Effie was painted by de László in 1920
2 DLA019-0041, op. cit.
3 Laszlo, Lucy de, 1921 diary, private collection, 20 December entry, pp. 381-382
4 De László also painted a full-length of Senorita Mercedes Santamarina, and a three-quarter length portrait of Mara Gastaga de Santamarina, The other paintings he executed were of Belgian and French sitters.
5 László, Lucy de , 1921 diary, op. cit., 20 December entry, p. 380
6 The Studio, Vol. 88 (1924), p. 234 and 237
7 Wife of Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, President of Argentina (1922-28)
8 DLA 050-0055
9 General Carlos Maria de Alvear, the sitter's great grandfather (1789-1853)
10 Marcelo Torcuato Alvear (1868-1942)
11 Ren Sargent (1865-1927)
12 The SANS SOUCI represented the Presidential Palace in the 1996 Hollywood film adaptation of the musical, Evita. In fact, neither President Perron nor his wife, Eva ever visited the palace, which was bought by the Durini family in 1964.
Rabu, 27 Juli 2011
Senin, 04 Juli 2011
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of Lady Illingworth, seated full-length, in a blue ball gown with pink ribbon
Price Realized £49,250
signed and dated 'de Laszlo/1934 V' (lower right)
oil on canvas
65½ x 43 in. (166.5 x 109 cm.)
Hungarian-born Philip de László was one of the most famous portrait painters of his era, both in Europe and in the United States. He was one of the last exponents of the grand manner in portraiture, and recorded for posterity the greatest personalities of his time, be they artists, writers, famous beauties, politicians, dictators, or kings. The freshness of de László's style and his ability to work at prodigious speed, using the sight-size technique,1 played an important part in his success.
In 1917, he painted an attractive seated full-length portrait of Mrs Percy Illingworth, the sister-in-law of Lady Illingworth, and it is likely that the latter had that work in mind when de László was commissioned to paint her. The composition, palette, and general conception of the present picture are also strongly reminiscent of the portrait of Lady Broughton, executed in 1922. The artist, who had a passion for luxurious fabrics and strict views on what his sitters should wear, rendered the tulle overlay of Lady Illingworth's silk satin dress by skimming the canvas with a light sweep of paint under a loose web of fluid, decisive brushstrokes to indicate the folds of the fabric.
The present portrait was certainly completed at the very beginning of May 1934, as it was proudly displayed at a party organised by Lord and Lady Illingworth on 12 May. As the artist and his wife were unable to attend, Lady Illingworth wrote to de László the following day: "The portrait came in for a lot of admiration, there were many friends and admirers of yours here."2 De László also made a head and shoulders study-portrait of Lady Illingworth around the same period.
De László's vast oeuvre includes relatively few full-length portraits: he tended to favour three-quarter-length formats when commissioned to paint large portraits. The increasingly high fees he commanded, combined with the impact the First World War had on British wealth, meant that most of his full-length portraits were executed in the 1910s. In the 1920s, most of his clientele for such works were American or South American, and he only painted about a dozen full-lengths in the 1930s, which makes a rarity of the present work. In 1934, the year it was executed, de László's normal fee for a full-length portrait was 1400 guineas (the equivalent of £78,000 in today's values) as opposed to 600 guineas for a half-length portrait.
Margaret Mary Clare was born on 23 November 1900, the only daughter of William Basil Wilberforce, of Markington Hall, Ripon, Yorkshire, and his wife Mary Holden, daughter of Sir Isaac Holden, 1st Baronet. On 18 November 1931 she married Albert Holden Illingworth, as his second wife.3 Like the Wilberforces, the Illingworths were of Yorkshire stock. Historically they made their wealth as wool combers, but Albert became a Member of Parliament. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1916 and served as Postmaster General in Lloyd George's government until 1921, when he was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Illingworth of Denton. There were no children of the marriage and the barony became extinct upon Albert Illingworth's death, on 23 January 1942.
Lady Illingworth was proud of her great-great-grandfather, the abolitionist Samuel Wilberforce. In 1933, she opened the Wilberforce Centenary exhibition in Hull and took an active interest in banning slavery in countries where it persisted. An elegant lady and society hostess, she lived in an opulent Georgian house at 44 Grosvenor Square. Once the town residence of the Earls of Harrowby, it was there, in June 1815, that the guests of the 1st Earl received Wellington's victory dispatch from Waterloo. Every year, Lady Illingworth organised a summer ball to commemorate this event. When she lost her husband in 1942 he left the house to her, on the condition that she did not enter a convent (being a devout Roman Catholic). During the Second World War, she served as Commandant of the Voluntary Aid Detachment and was an associate of the Royal Red Cross. In 1967, her house was developed to make way for the Britannia Hotel, now the Millennium Hotel. Her wealth was immense: when she departed, it was reported that forty-seven vans of valuables were taken away by a storage firm. She moved to Claridge's, where she continued to entertain lavishly.
1 With the sitter and canvas placed side by side, the artist would walk energetically to and away from the portrait, applying paint and retreating to judge the progress from a distance.
2 CLA024-0202, op. cit.
3 Albert Illingworth married firstly Annie Elizabeth Crothers in 1895. They were divorced in 1926.
We are grateful to Caroline Corbeau-Parsons for writing a catalogue entry for this portrait, which is included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné online (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com).
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=9&intObjectID=5451346&sid=94259890-b0ce-4b69-b0f5-38c9dc37555e
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of Miss Constance Ellen Guinness
Price Realized £13,750
signed, inscribed and dated 'to Connolly [?]/Phillipo/1902' (lower right)
oil on canvas
21 x 17 in. (53.3 x 43.2 cm.)
This portrait of Constance Guinness was painted by de László in Brittany in September 1902. Constance was one of his sisters-in-law, the artist having married Lucy, a member of the banking branch of the Guinness family, in June 1900.
It was in July 1902, in between periods of intense work on two large group portraits of the de Gramont family, that de László joined Lucy, Constance, and his friend the art historian Gbor de Trey for a holiday in Rothneuf, near Saint-Malo. As was typical for the artist, this was not a restful trip: as well as painting and drawing several girls in Breton dress ([2544], [8978], [111883]), and executing a genre painting of a young Breton widow with her two children [8984], de László, during the two months he spent there, made portrait drawings of his holiday companions, a large three-quarter-length portrait in oil of Lucy [11474], and the present portrait of her sister Constance.
As Lucy recorded in her diary at the time: "He [...] has done a head in oils of Con. & two red chalk of her - one of Trey - & many kleine Skitz[z]en." One of the two red chalk drawings of Constance mentioned shows her wearing a hat [3846], whilst the second is a worked up preparatory study for the present portrait, in the same pose, but head only, inscribed "Souvenir de Rotheneuf", and dated September 1902 [3840].
The warm palette adopted for this intimate portrait, notably its maroon background, is typical of de László's early works. It is the only one he painted of "Connely", Constance's nickname.
Constance Ellen Guinness was born on 7 April 1876, the youngest of the twelve children of Henry Guinness and his wife Emmelina Brown of Burton Hall, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin. In 1903, she married Captain Ernest Craig-Brown [3876], of The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. She spent much of her married life in India where her husband was Brigadier-General commanding the Cameron Highlanders in Karachi, Simla and Kashmir. They had two daughters, Jean [3881] and Bridget [3837] and a son, Alan [3829]. Constance died on 22 December 1964, aged eighty-eight.
We are grateful to Caroline Corbeau-Parsons for writing a catalogue entry for this portrait, which is to be included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné online. (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com)
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
1 Small Sketches
2 László, Lucy de, op, cit, 9 September 1902 entry, p.36.
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5451342&sid=94259890-b0ce-4b69-b0f5-38c9dc37555e
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of Lady Illingworth, seated full-length, in a blue ball gown with pink ribbon
Price Realized £49,250
signed and dated 'de Laszlo/1934 V' (lower right)
oil on canvas
65½ x 43 in. (166.5 x 109 cm.)
Hungarian-born Philip de László was one of the most famous portrait painters of his era, both in Europe and in the United States. He was one of the last exponents of the grand manner in portraiture, and recorded for posterity the greatest personalities of his time, be they artists, writers, famous beauties, politicians, dictators, or kings. The freshness of de László's style and his ability to work at prodigious speed, using the sight-size technique,1 played an important part in his success.
In 1917, he painted an attractive seated full-length portrait of Mrs Percy Illingworth, the sister-in-law of Lady Illingworth, and it is likely that the latter had that work in mind when de László was commissioned to paint her. The composition, palette, and general conception of the present picture are also strongly reminiscent of the portrait of Lady Broughton, executed in 1922. The artist, who had a passion for luxurious fabrics and strict views on what his sitters should wear, rendered the tulle overlay of Lady Illingworth's silk satin dress by skimming the canvas with a light sweep of paint under a loose web of fluid, decisive brushstrokes to indicate the folds of the fabric.
The present portrait was certainly completed at the very beginning of May 1934, as it was proudly displayed at a party organised by Lord and Lady Illingworth on 12 May. As the artist and his wife were unable to attend, Lady Illingworth wrote to de László the following day: "The portrait came in for a lot of admiration, there were many friends and admirers of yours here."2 De László also made a head and shoulders study-portrait of Lady Illingworth around the same period.
De László's vast oeuvre includes relatively few full-length portraits: he tended to favour three-quarter-length formats when commissioned to paint large portraits. The increasingly high fees he commanded, combined with the impact the First World War had on British wealth, meant that most of his full-length portraits were executed in the 1910s. In the 1920s, most of his clientele for such works were American or South American, and he only painted about a dozen full-lengths in the 1930s, which makes a rarity of the present work. In 1934, the year it was executed, de László's normal fee for a full-length portrait was 1400 guineas (the equivalent of £78,000 in today's values) as opposed to 600 guineas for a half-length portrait.
Margaret Mary Clare was born on 23 November 1900, the only daughter of William Basil Wilberforce, of Markington Hall, Ripon, Yorkshire, and his wife Mary Holden, daughter of Sir Isaac Holden, 1st Baronet. On 18 November 1931 she married Albert Holden Illingworth, as his second wife.3 Like the Wilberforces, the Illingworths were of Yorkshire stock. Historically they made their wealth as wool combers, but Albert became a Member of Parliament. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1916 and served as Postmaster General in Lloyd George's government until 1921, when he was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Illingworth of Denton. There were no children of the marriage and the barony became extinct upon Albert Illingworth's death, on 23 January 1942.
Lady Illingworth was proud of her great-great-grandfather, the abolitionist Samuel Wilberforce. In 1933, she opened the Wilberforce Centenary exhibition in Hull and took an active interest in banning slavery in countries where it persisted. An elegant lady and society hostess, she lived in an opulent Georgian house at 44 Grosvenor Square. Once the town residence of the Earls of Harrowby, it was there, in June 1815, that the guests of the 1st Earl received Wellington's victory dispatch from Waterloo. Every year, Lady Illingworth organised a summer ball to commemorate this event. When she lost her husband in 1942 he left the house to her, on the condition that she did not enter a convent (being a devout Roman Catholic). During the Second World War, she served as Commandant of the Voluntary Aid Detachment and was an associate of the Royal Red Cross. In 1967, her house was developed to make way for the Britannia Hotel, now the Millennium Hotel. Her wealth was immense: when she departed, it was reported that forty-seven vans of valuables were taken away by a storage firm. She moved to Claridge's, where she continued to entertain lavishly.
1 With the sitter and canvas placed side by side, the artist would walk energetically to and away from the portrait, applying paint and retreating to judge the progress from a distance.
2 CLA024-0202, op. cit.
3 Albert Illingworth married firstly Annie Elizabeth Crothers in 1895. They were divorced in 1926.
We are grateful to Caroline Corbeau-Parsons for writing a catalogue entry for this portrait, which is included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné online (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com).
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=9&intObjectID=5451346&sid=94259890-b0ce-4b69-b0f5-38c9dc37555e
Philip Alexius de Laszlo - Portrait of Miss Constance Ellen Guinness
Price Realized £13,750
signed, inscribed and dated 'to Connolly [?]/Phillipo/1902' (lower right)
oil on canvas
21 x 17 in. (53.3 x 43.2 cm.)
This portrait of Constance Guinness was painted by de László in Brittany in September 1902. Constance was one of his sisters-in-law, the artist having married Lucy, a member of the banking branch of the Guinness family, in June 1900.
It was in July 1902, in between periods of intense work on two large group portraits of the de Gramont family, that de László joined Lucy, Constance, and his friend the art historian Gbor de Trey for a holiday in Rothneuf, near Saint-Malo. As was typical for the artist, this was not a restful trip: as well as painting and drawing several girls in Breton dress ([2544], [8978], [111883]), and executing a genre painting of a young Breton widow with her two children [8984], de László, during the two months he spent there, made portrait drawings of his holiday companions, a large three-quarter-length portrait in oil of Lucy [11474], and the present portrait of her sister Constance.
As Lucy recorded in her diary at the time: "He [...] has done a head in oils of Con. & two red chalk of her - one of Trey - & many kleine Skitz[z]en." One of the two red chalk drawings of Constance mentioned shows her wearing a hat [3846], whilst the second is a worked up preparatory study for the present portrait, in the same pose, but head only, inscribed "Souvenir de Rotheneuf", and dated September 1902 [3840].
The warm palette adopted for this intimate portrait, notably its maroon background, is typical of de László's early works. It is the only one he painted of "Connely", Constance's nickname.
Constance Ellen Guinness was born on 7 April 1876, the youngest of the twelve children of Henry Guinness and his wife Emmelina Brown of Burton Hall, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin. In 1903, she married Captain Ernest Craig-Brown [3876], of The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. She spent much of her married life in India where her husband was Brigadier-General commanding the Cameron Highlanders in Karachi, Simla and Kashmir. They had two daughters, Jean [3881] and Bridget [3837] and a son, Alan [3829]. Constance died on 22 December 1964, aged eighty-eight.
We are grateful to Caroline Corbeau-Parsons for writing a catalogue entry for this portrait, which is to be included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné online. (www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com)
The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors are compiling the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. Caroline Corbeau-Parsons is the British and French Editor. Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact catalogue@delaszlo.com for more information.
1 Small Sketches
2 László, Lucy de, op, cit, 9 September 1902 entry, p.36.
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