3777

Peter Victor Ferdinand Cazalet 1914

Standing full length slightly to the right, head turned slightly to the left, looking away from the viewer, wearing a navy velvet jacket with a lace collar and a pale blue cummerbund, holding a hoop, the front pillared porch of Fairlawne in the background

Oil on canvas, 198.2 x 106.7 cm (78 x 42 in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A de László / 1914 XI

Laib L7570 (686) / C5 (32)  

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 97: Peter Cazalet. " 26th  [among signatures dated June 1914]

Private Collection

There is no correspondence in the artist’s archive regarding this portrait, and the circumstances of this commission are therefore unclear. Lucy de László, however, recorded in her diary that her husband commenced work on Peter Cazalet’s portrait in the autumn of 1913. Having accompanied de László to the Cazalets’ home^[1] on 2 October of that year, she wrote on 9 October that the artist was expecting the boy to lunch with them.^[2] This would suggest that the artist started on the portrait in his London studio then, probably doing preparatory sketches, but the following day he travelled to Fairlawne,^[3] the Cazalet’s family seat in Kent, to pursue his work. At that stage in his career, de László still travelled to his patrons’ homes for important commissions such as this one, and the boy’s full-length portrait was originally meant to include a pony, with the family home in the background.

Since John Singer Sargent had completed a large equestrian portrait of William Marshall Cazalet in 1902,^[4] it is possible that the latter wanted his son’s portrait to echo that large composition.^[5] In any case, de László felt frustrated when the Cazalets eventually decided they did not wish the pony to be part of the composition: “P. returned this aft: most annoyed with the Cs: letting him down with a huge canvas & their wishing for a smaller picture, without poney [sic]! Instead of staying till Monday aft: P. returned on Sunday aft.”^[6] The Cazalet’s decision may have had to do with the fact that the “child used to hide whenever a pony was produced.”^[7] During his short stay at Fairlawne, de László had time to make an oil study of the portico [3780], as well as a drawing of the parkland and cattle [3782].

Peter Cazalet’s portrait was not completed until the following year, as from December 1913, the artist spent time in France, working in Paris and resting in the South of France. He only came back to London for a few days in March, but soon was unexpectedly summoned to Greece to paint the royal family in Athens. He returned to England mid-May, when many other portraits awaited his attention. De László’s appointment book for 1914 indicates that he resumed work on Peter Cazalet’s picture on 24 June 1914, and that further sittings took place on the three consecutive days.^[8] Lucy de László noted in her own diary, on 27 June 1914: “was in studio before lunch – Balfour sat this mg: he is almost finished & quite splendid [2707] - Also the Cazalet Boy is getting on beautifully, with a hoop.”^[9] Unfortunately, no appointment book covering the last six months of 1914 remains, but judging by the month inscribed in roman numerals on the portrait, it seems its completion was again postponed, until November.

There exists a preparatory head-and-shoulders study-portrait of Peter Cazalet wearing a hat, which probably reflects de László’s original conception of the portrait [3792]. The artist painted the sitter’s mother, Mrs William Marshall Cazalet, in the summer of 1915 [3760].  

Peter Victor Ferdinand Cazalet was born on 5 January 1907, the youngest of the four children of William Marshall Cazalet (1865-1932) of Fairlawne, Tonbridge, Kent, and his wife Maud Heron Maxwell (1867-1952). He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained a third-class degree in Chemistry. A keen sportsman, he excelled in rackets and cricket, real tennis, and squash. While at Christ Church, he overcame his childhood fears and learnt to ride, soon to become a very able amateur rider over fences and hurdles. After a timid attempt to work in industrial chemistry, for two years he attempted to increase his skills in jockeyship, and learnt stable management from Sonny Hall, a Berkshire trainer.

In 1932, he inherited Fairlawne, his elder brother Edward having died in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and his second elder brother Victor^[10] wishing to live somewhere else. On 14 December of that year, he married Leonora Wodehouse (1905-1944), step-daughter of P.G. Wodehouse. There were two children of the marriage, Sheran (born 1934), and Edward (born 1936). At Fairlawne, Peter Cazalet built up a small string of jumpers. In the early 1930s, Anthony Mildmay asked his fellow Etonian if he could come and ride out in the mornings, on his way to the City, thus starting a sporting partnership which lasted until Mildmay’s death in 1950. Cazalet himself rode in five Grand Nationals, but he gave up riding after a bad fall in 1939, and took out his own trainer’s licence. During the Second World War, he fought in the Royal Artillery between 1939 and 1940, and then as a Welsh Guards company commander. After the war, he and Mildmay were determined to win the Grand National, but the latter only finished third in 1948. He however persuaded Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, to have a horse in training with Peter Cazalet. Over the years, of the 1100 winners he trained, 250 carried her colours.

After his wife’s untimely death in 1949 Peter Cazalet married The Hon. Mrs. Zara S.K.M. Strutt,^[11] youngest daughter of Sir Harry Stapleton-Mainwaring, 5th Bt, of Peover Hall, Cheshire. They had three sons, Victor (born 1951), Anthony, and David, who died in infancy in 1956. Peter Cazalet died on 29 May 1973.

LITERATURE

•Dayer Gallati, Barbara Great Expectations: John Singer Sargent Painting Children, Brooklyn Museum in association with Bulfinch Press, pp. 229-230, fig. 92, ill.

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 225

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection

•László, Lucy de, 1914 diary, private collection

•László, Philip de, 1913 appointment book, private collection

•László, Philip de, January-June 1914 Charles Letts’s pocket diary, private collection

CC 2011