12637

Countess Anastasia de Torby 1913

Standing three-quarter length slightly to the right and looking to the left, wearing a white gown with a blue stole draped over her left arm and holding her hat in her right hand, in a landscape with a stormy sky

Oil on canvas, 162.9 x 104.1 cm (64 ⅛ x 41 in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. de László / 1913

Laib L6824(55) / C9(21) and L8553(678) / C26(7)  

NPG Album 1912-16, p. 11

NPG Album 1913-14, p. 18

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 92: Zia de Torby Nov. 22nd / /1912

Sitters’ Book II, f. 10: Zia de Torby.   July 10th 1917.

Private Collection

This portrait was commissioned by Countess Zia’s father Grand Duke Michael of Russia and the artist’s wife noted in her diary that an honorarium of £400 was paid.^[1] She also indicated that the sitter attended the studio for sittings on 8-10 and 14 June. A possible rejected version was made at this time [12640] and was given to the sitter’s husband Major Harold Wernher on the occasion of their marriage in 1917. The artist completed a third portrait at that time [1954] as a surprise wedding gift to the sitter’s husband.

The portrait is a fine example of the compositional type favoured by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 – 1830), most famously in his 1794 portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton, known as Pinkie, now in the collection of the Huntingdon Collection in San Marino, California.

A photograph in the exhibition Pushkin and the Kenwood Connection shows the present portrait hanging over the chimney-piece in the ‘Book Room’ at Kenwood, which was the London residence of the Grand Duke Michael from 1910 to 1917.^[2]

De László painted three portraits of the sitter’s mother-in-law Countess Alice Wernher, the first in 1916 [6784] for which there are two preparatory oil studies [112535][6102] and, after her marriage to Baron Ludlow, a three-quarter length in 1924 [6780] and a study portrait wearing a hat in 1925 [113279]. The present sitter’s sister, Countess Nada de Torby, Marchioness of Milford Haven was painted in 1925 [3491].

Countess Anastasia ‘Zia’ Michailovna de Torby was born on 9 September 1892 in Wiesbaden, the daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia (1861-1929) and his wife Countess Sophie of Merenberg (1868-1927). The couple married in secret and in punishment Grand Duke Michael was stripped of his military titles and banished from Russia. Sophia was created Countess de Torby in 1891 by her uncle Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The title was extended to all three of her children. 

The family lived in Nassau, Wiesbaden and Cannes. From 1900 they settled in England, first at Keele Hall, Staffordshire and then Kenwood House, London. The family had a close friendship with the British Royal Family and Grand Duke Michael was appointed MVO by King Edward VII.

On 20 July 1917 Countess Zia married Major Harold Augustus Wernher (1893-1973) of Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire. The families had first met in Cannes in about 1905 and remained close. After the loss of Grand Duke Michael’s fortune during the Russian Revolution, the Wernhers supported him until his death in 1923. There were three children of the marriage: George (born 1918), Georgina (born 1919) and Myra (born 1925).

On 1 September 1917 the sitter was granted by Royal Warrant the style and precedence of the daughter of an Earl. She was also a Member of the Order of St John and awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1946 for service during the Second World War.

She and her husband were successful racehorse owners and bred Brown Jack, ridden by the great Steve Donoghue and immortalized by Sir Alfred Munnings in a bronze which is displayed at Ascot racecourse during the running of the Brown Jack Stakes. They also won the Derby with Charlotte Town and the Triple Crown with Meld.

She died on 7 December 1977 and was buried in the family mausoleum at Holy Trinity Churchyard in East Hyde, Bedfordshire.

PROVENANCE:

Commissioned by Grand Duke Michael of Russia, father of the sitter;

By descent in the family        

EXHIBITED:

•Agnew’s, London, Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. László, M.V.O., June-July, 1913, no. 12

LITERATURE:

•The Illustrated London News, 19 July 1913, ill.

•“Real and Unreal Portraiture,” Literary Digest, Vol. 47 (9 August 1913), p. 211, ill.

•Die Woche, Issue 35, Berlin 1913, ill. p. 1487

•Metropolitan, May 1914, ill.

•Williams, Oakley, ed., Selections from the Work of P.A. de László, Hutchinson, London, 1921, p. 213, ill.

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 278

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 218, ill. pp. 217, 321

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection

•László, Philip de, 1934 diary, private collection

KF 2022