3760

Mrs William Marshall Cazalet, née Maud Lucia Heron-Maxwell 1915

Seated half length slightly to the right, looking full face to the viewer, wearing a white frilled blouse under a deep red gown, tied at the waist and trimmed with blue, and drop earrings, against a dark background

Oil on canvas, 94 x 66.1 cm (37 x 26 in.)

Inscribed lower left: P.A. de László / 1915. July

Laib L7861 (58) / C5 (30)  

NPG 1913-15 Album, p. 73

Private Collection

In 1913, de László started a full-length portrait of Maud Cazalet’s youngest son, Peter [3777]. In October that year, he visited the family seat, Fairlawne, in Kent, to work on the picture in situ, as the property was to be the backdrop to the boy’s portrait. No letters related to the Cazalets’ family portraits exist in the artist’s archive to clarify when the present work was commissioned, but since de László, owing to pressure of work, did not complete Peter Cazalet’s portrait until November 1914, it is possible that both pictures were commissioned at the same time.

Lucy de László’s appointment book for 1915 records that sittings for the present portrait took place on 7, 17, 18 and 19 July.^[1] The artist would have been aware, having been to Fairlawne, of the large full-length portrait John Singer Sargent painted in 1901 of Maud Cazalet and her two elder sons, Edward and Victor, against a flamboyant red background.^[2] De László adopts a much more subdued palette, opting for a dark background and a garnet gown for his sitter. Only the white lace of her collar frames the pale flesh tones, the artist concentrating all the focus of the portrait on her features.

Maud Lucia Heron-Maxwell was born in June 1867, the eldest daughter of Sir John, 7th Bt from Springkell, Dumfriesshire, and his wife Caroline Harriett Howard-Brooke. On 20 July 1893, she married William Marshall Cazalet (1865-1932), to whom she had become engaged three weeks after they met. They settled down at Fairlawne, the Cazalet family seat, a fine William and Mary house near Tonbridge, Kent. Maud Cazalet became much involved in the family estate and local affairs. There were three sons and a daughter of the marriage: Edward (born 1894), who died in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, Victor (born 1896), who died in a plane crash in 1943,^[3] Thelma (born 1899), and Peter (born 1907).

Maud. Cazalet was a strong character and entertained extensively. She had a discerning eye for the arts: a friend of the art collector Sir Joseph Duveen, she assembled a remarkable collection of pictures and antiques at Fairlawne. Her husband was a more retiring character who involved himself in farming and rural activities. He was Master of Foxhounds for some years and a successful racehorse owner.  Maud Cazalet died on 14 January 1952.

LITERATURE:

•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, 1915 appointment book

CC 2011