5173

The Marchioness of Waterford, née Juliet Mary Lindsay 1931

Half-length in profile to the left, head in three-quarter profile and looking to the left, wearing a white sleeveless gown and a single strand pearl necklace

Oil on board, 90.2 x 59.7 cm (35 ½ x 23 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1931. July.

Laib L17025 (151) / C28 (18)

NPG Album 1931, p. 27

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 67: Juliet. Mary. Waterford. / 8. Nov. 1930.

Sitters’ Book II, f. 69: Juliet. Mary. Waterford. July 28th 1931.

Private Collection

This portrait is a pendant to that of the sitter’s husband the 7th Marquis of Waterford [5170], commissioned for their marriage which took place in October 1930. The Daily Sketch noted that de László was in such demand that the couple were summoned back in November from their honeymoon in the South of France to sit as this time was the artist’s only availability.^[1] 

The first portrait of the sitter was begun on 8 November in the artist’s studio at 3 Fitzjohn’s Avenue. According to a descendant of the sitter it was rejected as it was not considered a good likeness. The artist was so busy with commissions that he was only able to paint Lady Waterford again in July 1931. The composition of the present portrait is more successful as a pendant to her husband’s portrait and it remains at Curraghmore, the Waterford ancestral home in Ireland.

De László painted the sitter’s mother-in-law, Lady Beauclerk, widow of the 6th Marquis of Waterford, in 1922 [5414].

Juliet Mary Lindsay was born on 27 January 1904, daughter of Major David Balcarres Lindsay (1883-1943) and his wife Grace Maude Miller (d. 1945). On 14 October 1930 she married John Charles de la Poer Beresford, 7th Marquis of Waterford (1901-1934). There were two children of the marriage: John (born 1933) and Patrick (born 1934). After her husband’s early death, just after the birth of their second child, Lady Waterford managed the family estates until her eldest son John was of age. On 17 December 1946, she married Lt. Col. John Eric Durnford Silcock, son of Charles Silcock of Cahir, co. Tipperary. The sitter died in 1987.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [5175].

LITERATURE:

•Hicks, David, Irish Country Houses: Portraits & Painters, The Collins Press, 2014, p. 94, ill.; p. 105

•DLA122-0039, Coupures Scrapbook, Daily Sketch, 15 November 1930

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, 29 July entry

KF 2023