7809

CUT DOWN

Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark, née May Stewart 1922

Seated three-quarter length to the right in a gilt armchair, head turned to the left, wearing a white evening gown, a diamond and emerald sautoir and tiara, a closed fan in her left hand resting on her lap

Oil on canvas, 101.6  x 73.7 cm (40 x 29 in.) [dimensions post-cut down]

Original portrait inscribed lower right: de László / Cannes. / 1922. IV.

Laib L10991(807) / C29(29): Woman, full length, seated

Sitters’ Book II, f. 29: Anastasia / Princess Christopher of Greece Cannes, March 29th / 1922

Private Collection

De László painted this and a pendant full-length portrait of the sitter’s husband Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark [7804], while he was staying at their villa in Cannes to recover from influenza.^[1] Originally full-length, it has since been cut down to nearly three-quarter length. De László had previously painted the sitter in 1915 when she was Mrs William B. Leeds [6021].

The sitter is wearing an emerald and diamond sautoir and tiara, by Cartier, New York. They were re-purchased by Cartier after her death and the emerald pendant remounted by Cartier in London as a necklace for Lady Deterding [9831]. The largest step-cut emerald was remounted as a necklace which was sold to the Maharajah of Nawangar.^[2]

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [6021].

PROVENANCE:

William B. Leeds, Jr., son of the sitter

EXHIBITED:

•M. Knoedler & Co., Paris, June 1922^[3]

LITERATURE:

•The Tatler, no. 1086, 19 April 1922, p. 102

•Grange, Paulin, “Les Portraits de Philippe A. de László,” La Revue de L’Art Ancien et Moderne, XLII (July / Aug 1922), p. 144

•The Charleston Daily Mail, Sunday Morning, 30 July 1922, ill.

•Lima News, Lima, OH, Sunday, 30 July 1922, ill.

•The Gleaner [Kingston, Jamaica], Thursday, 10 August 1922, p. 6, ill.

•“London as a ‘Deserted Village,’” Arts and Decoration, September 1922, p. 327, ill.

•Nadelhoffer, Hans, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary, 1984, p. 69, ill. (detail)

•Papi, Stefano, and Alexandra Rhodes, Famous Jewelry Collectors, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1999, p. 148, ill.

•“Philip de Laszlo, le portraitiste de la Belle époque,” Princes d’Europe & d’Ailleurs, La revue d’histoire et d’actualité des familles royales, Octobre-Decembre 2000, ill. p. 23

•Hardy, Joanna, et al., Emerald: Twenty-One Centturies of Jewelled Opulence & Power, Thames & Hudson, London, p. 73, ill. (detail)

•DLA092-0018, press cutting, Morning Post, 11 April 1922

•DLA092-0067, press cutting, “Exposition Laszlo,” Le Gaulois, 12 June 1922

•DLA092-0038, press cutting, not dated

KF 2017