6715

Mrs Francis F. Prentiss, née Elizabeth Severance 1932

Half-length to the right, full face to the viewer, wearing a pale evening dress and a green silk cloak edged in brown fur, emerald drop earrings and a long pearl necklace, the longer strand of which she holds in her left hand, all against a dark background

Oil on canvas, 88.9 x 73.7 cm (35 x 29 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / N.Y. 1932 I

Sitters’ Book II, f. 71: Elisabeth S. Prentiss / Jan 27th 1932.

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, USA

De László first met Mrs Prentiss during his third visit to the United States October 1925 - April 1926. In his 1931 diary he recalled that she had approached him at that time, but that he had not had time to paint her portrait.^[1] A letter of September 1931 from Daria, Princess Kara-Georgevitch [5857] indicates that the sitter had arranged to go to London to be painted in 1928 but illness had prevented her from making the voyage.^[2] De László travelled to Cleveland in December 1931 for the unveiling of his portrait of Ambrose Swasey [7227], painted for the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, which had also commissioned his portrait of Myron Timothy Herrick in 1922 [5601]. While in the city he visited the home of Mr and Mrs Prentiss, which he recalled in his diary: “we went with Severance to mr – mrs Prentice a fine House & many prominent treasures – Holbein – Rubens – Vandyk [sic] Greco – Reynolds – everythink [sic] in the House very fine – with sympathetic owners – but perfect was the House in taste.”^[3] Mrs Prentiss travelled to New York in January 1932, where her portrait was completed.

Elizabeth Severance was born 16 November 1865 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Louis H. Severance, and his wife, née Fanny Benedict. Her father was an associate of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company and a native of Cleveland, Ohio. She graduated from Wellesley in 1887, and married 4 August 1892, Doctor Dudley Peter Allen (1852-1915), a Cleveland surgeon and art collector. After his death she married 19 September 1917 Francis Fleury Prentiss (1858-1937), a Cleveland industrialist and philanthropist, at St Thomas’s Church, New York. Francis Prentiss’ principal charity was St Luke’s Hospital, of which he was president from 1906 until his death, but both he and Mrs. Prentiss were also very generous to a number of cultural and educational organizations, including Oberlin College and Wooster College.

In 1928 the sitter was the first woman to receive the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce Medal for distinguished public service, and in 1941 the Chinese government awarded her the fellowship of the Plum Blossom for her efforts with the United China Relief campaign. After the death of her husband in 1937, she succeeded him as President of St Luke’s Hospital. In 1939 she established the Elizabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation for the improvement of public health. 

She died 4 January 1944, at the age of 78, after a long illness. She bequeathed her art collection to the Dudley P. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio (which she had given the college as a gift) and to the Cleveland Museum of Art.^[4]

PROVENANCE:

The sitter;

John A. Hadden;

Given by the latter to Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 1946

LITERATURE:

•Catalogue of European and American Paintings and Sculpture in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, 1967, ill.

•DLA073-0058, letter from Daria, Princess Kara-Georgevitch, to de László, 5 September 1931

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, 18 October entry, p. 295; 19 December entry, p. 357

MD & KF 2018