DLA017-0016 Transcription

FULTHORPE STUDIOS,

3D WARWICK AVENUE,

PADDINGTON, W.2.

Sep 15th [1930]

Dear Mr de Laszlo

It is good of you to recommend me to the Duchess of Northumberland – I more than appreciate it – very many thanks – I shall be delighted to do it – as that portrait [6848] has always been one of my great favourites – so I am hoping I shall have the pleasure of copying [6850] it.^[1]

I have received a letter from

[Page 2]

Mr P.P. Argenti, asking me my fee to copy [2659] a small portrait of a lady painted by you [3987] – I have quoted 50 gns.^[2] I hope I have done rightly in this matter.

I am so pleased to hear that you & Mrs de Laszlo are well. Glad to say Mrs Kendrick is now much better & joins me in wishing you both a most enjoyable holiday.

Again very many thanks

Yours sincerely

Sydney P. Kendrick

Editorial Note:

Sydney Percy Kendrick (1874-1955), British artist. Kendrick was one of de László’s favoured official copyists; exhibited at the Royal Academy as a painter of genre and landscape paintings.

SMDL

08/01/2018

[1] De László had painted the original portrait [6848] of Alan Ian Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland (1880-1930), in July 1927. Following the Duke’s untimely death three years later, the Dowager Duchess [6841] commissioned Sydney Kendrick to paint a replica [6850] of it, being “anxious to have his portrait at Albury Park”, see DLA019-0003, letter from the Duchess of Northumberland to de László, 4 September 1930. In a letter of 8th December 1930 to the Duchess, de László wrote, “I am delighted to hear that you are also satisfied with the copy – I thought it perfect”, see Catalogue of Paintings, compiled by the Eighth Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1930, no. 436.

[2] See DLA017-0015, letter from Sydney Percy Kendrick to de László, 19 October [probably 1930] in which Kendrick clarifies that Philip Pandély Argenti had asked him to copy de László's portrait of his mother, Madame Pandély Argenti [3987].