7090

Commanding General Keshar Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana 1937

Seated three-quarter length to the right, head turned and looking to the left, wearing a jewelled plumed helmet and a cloak over full ceremonial uniform with many decorations, holding his sword across his knees

Oil on canvas, 122 x 86.4 cm (55 ½ x 37 ⅜)

Inscribed, lower left: de László / LONDON. 1937.

Laib L17293G (428) / C23 (31)

NPG 1936-37 Album, p. 15: His Excellency / Commanding General Sir Shumsher Jung Bahadeer [sic] Rana etc. / Special Envoy of the King of Nepal

Private Collection

The present portrait was commissioned in April 1937 by the sitter’s brother, Krishna S.J.B. Rana, who was Envoy Extra and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James in London. Commanding General Kaiser S.J.B. Rana had been chosen to lead the Nepalese Mission to the Coronation of George VI, and to commemorate this event, Krishna S.J.B. Rana intended to present his brother with his portrait.^[1] 

The sitter had a passion for art, and had always had the greatest admiration for de László: as early as 1919, it had been his intention to be portrayed by the artist, and in 1935, de László eventually agreed to paint his portrait from photographs [7096]. However, his coming to London in 1937 was the opportunity for him to have his portrait done from life. Kaiser Rana was in London between mid-May and mid-July and it seems the first sittings for the present portrait took place at the very end of May, and during the first days of June, and were resumed on 15 June.^[2] De László’s honorarium for the present portrait was £600, which was much less than the artist usually commanded at that time and half the fee he originally quoted in 1919 for the 1935 portrait he painted from photographs.

When travelling from Nepal, the sitter also brought the original 1935 portrait with him, portrait which was overpainted, most probably to make the sitter’s features livelier and to get a better likeness. On this occasion, the artist painted over the sitter’s moustache to depict him clean shaven, as in the present portrait. This was amongst the last commissions the artist ever painted: it was exhibited at Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., London, from November until December 1937, a show which opened two days after the artist's death.

De László also made a preparatory pencil drawing [7092] for the present portrait and an undated oil sketch of the sitter’s head [7094], both of which remained in his studio.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [7096].

Original frame by Emile Remy, 153 King’s Road, London SW, for which £65 was paid.                                 

EXHIBITED:        

•Wildenstein’s, London, Exhibition of Paintings by Philip A. de László, M.V.O, 24 November-22 December 1937, no. 3                        

LITERATURE:         

•Naef, Georges. Nepal: Art et Civilisation des Ranas, pp. 158-59, ill. p. 159

•DLA073-0172, letter from Kenneth Keymer to de László, 14 April 1937

•DLA073-0173, letter from de László to Kaiser, 4 June 1937

•DLA162-0349, “Kerti ünnepély László Fülöpnél london-hampsteadi otthonában” [Garden Party at Philip de László’s Home in Hampstead], Pesti Hírlap, 21 July 1937, p. 7

CC 2008