4735

Viscountess Grimston, née Lady Violet Constance Maitland Brabazon 1920

Seated full-length, to the left, full-face, wearing a dark evening dress, her right arm resting on the back of her chair, holding an amber necklace in her left hand, which is raised to her breast, her foot resting on a stool and a green brocade curtain behind

Oil on canvas, 215.9 x 124.5 cm (85 x 49 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1920 X London

Laib L9996 (289) / C11 (6)

NPG 1917-21 Album, f. 119

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 14: Violet Grimston / Mar 16. 1920

Gorhambury Estates Company

This portrait of Viscountess Grimston offers an alternative mood to the classical life-size portrait de László had made of the sitter and her son [4734]. As the mythological painting was an ambitious and unusual piece, the artist was anxious that the sitter might grow tired of it. As he worked on it, he began to lack confidence in the final painting [4734], which unusually inscribed ‘study.’

In a letter sent to the artist to acknowledge receipt of the two paintings, the Lady Violet told de László: “my father-in-law, who had seen neither of them, is enchanted with the one in the black.  He thinks it “a magnificent piece of painting,” whereas, she continues, “he is not so taken with the Greek one at present.”#  

It is worth noting that the present work perfectly exemplifies de László’s tenet that the frame forms an integral part of a painting. In this particular instance, the golden patterns of the Remy frame – a reproduction of a 16th century Italian cassetta frame – harmoniously correspond to the brocade as well as to the golden details of the sitter’s dress.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [4734].

Original frame by Emile Rémy, 153 King’s Road, London S.W.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

LITERATURE:

•Grimston, Violet, Viscountess, Notes on my sittings to Mr de László, The Gorhambury Collection Archives, November-December 1919

•The Illustrated London News, 29 January 1921, p. 147, ill.

•The Ladies’ Field, vol. XCII, n˚1194, Saturday, 29 January 1921, front cover, ill.

•DLA069-0177, letter from Lady Violet Grimston to de László, 8 March 1921

CC 2008