DLA011-0035 Transcription
BARBON,
KIRKBY LONSDALE.
Dec 5. 1912
Dear Mr de Lászlò
The Committee of Miss Weisses old pupils met on Monday, & they wish me to thank you very much for your letter about the portrait [2097] & for all your kindness about it. They would like the frame to be rather different, however & we think Remy[1] could make it in a style wh: we feel would be more to our fancy for Miss Weisse as you say we need not have the Louis XIV one.
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We all like best a plain oak frame not too rough gilt (not too brightly) with English gold, with a bevelled edge on the inner size - & we think about 5 in across - rather in the style of some of Mr Watts’s frames - I hope you will like the idea[2] Alas the other young ladies are so longing to have pictures of
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the lovely portrait that they are anxious to have reproductions made. What would be most delightful for us all we feel - & within the limits of our purse! - would be if Mr Emery Walker[3] might photograph the portrait & then reproduce it in his photogravure process, which I think
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he has done of your portraits before & which we hope you would like & approve -
May the picture remain at your studio while the frame is being made? - or would you prefer it to go to 28 Princes Gardens - when it might also be photographed by Mr Walker before going to Northlands if you kindly agree - or if it stops at your studio might he do it there.
I do apologise for bothering you with so many letters, but I was only in London a few hours & could not avail myself of your kind invitation to your studio. If you could send me a line I will write to Remy & to Mr Walker - or if you prefer to send the portrait to Princes Gardens - I will write & prepare a place for it. I thought it had better all be done before
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my sister & one or two others take it down to Northlands - tho’ I know Miss Weisse is longing to receive it.
With very many thanks - & kindest remembrances to Mrs de Laszlò | Yours sincerely
R.B. Kay Shuttleworth
SMDL
10/11/2017
[1] A reference to the French framemaker and gilder, Emily Joseph Remy, who framed many of de László’s portraits. See Lynn Roberts, ‘A note on Philip de László and picture framing’, url: https://www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/the-art-of-the-picture-frame/artist-lazlo.php [accessed 16 July 2020].
[2] A reference to the ‘Watts frame’, a type of frame named after, and popularised by, the Victorian artist George Frederick Watts (1817-1904). Inspired by a simple form of sixteenth century Italian casseta frame with a wide frieze between carved foliate mouldings, in a Watts frame oak veneer was gilded directly onto the wood, with no intermediate gesso layer. The oak frieze was fixed with butt joints. The style became ubiquitous in the late nineteenth century, see ‘G. F. Watts: framing myths and portraits’, The Frame Blog, 12 May 2020, url: https://theframeblog.com/tag/g-f-watts/ [accessed 16 July 2020].
[3] Sir Emery Walker (1851-1933), engraver, photographer and printer