6987

Study portrait

Baron Helmut Schröder 1913

Half-length to the right, looking to the viewer, wearing a red open-necked flannel shirt with a black scarf knotted loosely like a tie, a hilly landscape beyond

Oil on board, 90 x 70 cm (35 ½ x 27 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left in pencil: P A de László / London 1913. april 

Laib L6583 (838) / C24 (19):  Son of Baron Schroder [sic]

NPG 1903-14 Album, p. 12

NPG 1912-16 Album, p. 17 where labelled by the artist: Helmuth [sic] von Schroder

Private Collection

De László had already painted portraits of the present sitter’s sisters, Dorothée and Marga, in 1908 [6984] and his mother Baroness Emma von Schröder in 1909 [6942]. Nevertheless, in a letter of 8 July 1910, while thanking de László for a second head study he had just made of Marga [6996] and regretting that his portrait of her husband Bruno [6945] was taking so long, Emma von Schröder wrote that she was considering having a portrait made of her youngest child, Helmut, by Sir John Lavery: “I am certain you will understand that, as you like Lavery as a person and as an artist.”^[1] Lavery had already painted Helmut’s elder brother Bruni a few years previously and it would appear that this, as well as present pressure of work on de László, led her to the decision to approach Lavery. It is not known, however, if Lavery carried out the commission.

In January 1913, just before Helmut’s twelfth birthday, Emma first suggested to de László that “it would be too heavenly to have a small sketch of him, just the head + I think you too would have fun with his Italian face.”^[2] The idea of emphasising Helmut’s southern features was developed by the time the portrait was begun on 8 April 1913. Emma regretted she could not be present for the first sitting, “which, for me, is always the most interesting”, but she wrote she would send him to de László’s studio “with an assortment of clothes, although I think a flannel shirt is always the best for my boy.”^[3] This implies that the decision to portray Helmut as one of Garibaldi’s Redshirts had already been made before the portrait was begun, and seems to have been the result of a private joke between de László and Emma, possibly inspired by the recent publication of G.M. Trevelyan’s biography of Garibaldi which was much talked about at the time.^[4]

The portrait was finished by 19 April when Emma wrote to de László: “The portrait has arrived + delights us + we both find that the dreamy Garibaldi on the mountain plateau works harmoniously and charmingly.” With her perfectionist’s eye she continues: “Should you wish to exhibit it then a spot of varnish must be removed that has got itself into a corner and has sent a small thick stream down the picture.” She also asked de László’s advice on hanging the picture at the Schröders’ home, Dell Park, where it would be “surrounded by your models and works.”^[5] Lucy de László’s diary notes that £200 was paid for the portrait.^[6]

De László made another portrait sketch of Helmut, a small head, in 1917 [6989], the year he was commissioned to paint the second of the three portraits he made of Baron Bruno Schröder, the sitter's father [6972].

Helmut William Bruno Schröder was born on 18 January 1901, the second son of Baron Bruno Schröder and his wife Emma, née Deichmann. He was educated at Eton (during which time his elder brother Bruni (1895-1915) was killed serving in the German Army in Russia), and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. After Oxford he spent some years abroad studying business methods and improving his language skills in Hamburg. In 1926 he joined his father as a partner of J. Henry Schröder & Co., becoming Senior Partner on Bruno’s death in 1940. After the bank became a public company in 1959 he remained Chairman until 1965 and was Honorary President from 1966. From his father he inherited a love of gardening and also maintained the Schröder family’s links with Germany. He was awarded the Grosses Verdienstkreuz of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964 for his substantial work sponsoring various German charities in Britain.

Helmut Schröder died at his Scottish estate of Dunlossit on 18 June 1969. In the words of an obituarist: “He was a deeply religious man, whose strong convictions influenced his character and his life. His warm-hearted kindliness and understanding of others never failed to awaken not only his sympathy but his immediate helpful response.”^[7]

On 2 June 1930 he married Meg Darell (1904-1994), the eldest daughter of Colonel Sir Lionel Darell, 6th Bart., whom de László painted in 1935 [6991]. Helmut and Meg had two children, Bruno Lionel and Charmaine Brenda.

EXHBITION:

•Grafton Galleries, Twenty-Third Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, 6 June-11 July 1913, no. 132

LITERATURE:        

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 230

•DLA066-0073, letter from Emma von Schröder to de László, 8 July 1910

•DLA066-0129, letter from Emma von Schröder to de László, 3 January 1913

•DLA066-0075, letter from Emma von Schröder to de László, 5 April 1913

•DLA066-0070, letter from Emma von Schröder to de László, 19 April 1913

•DLA066-0072, letter from Emma von Schröder to de László, after April 1913

•DLA017-0085, letter from Helmut Schröder to de László, 22 June 1930

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection, p. 148

  CWS 2008