11631

My Nubian Servant, Aswan 1929

Half-length to the left, head turned in three-quarter profile and looking to the viewer, wearing white robes and turban, a red sash round his waist, balancing a silver tray on his hands with a glass of yellow tea and three small white teacups and saucers

Oil on canvasboard, 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / Aswan 1929   

Verso: Signed by the artist with initials and inscribed top right: my coffee boy [ink]

Studio Inventory p. 53 (271): Nubian Servant, holding a tray with glasses. Chosen by Mr. Patrick and lent to him by the Trustees. / Painted at Luxor.

Private Collection

In January 1929 de László travelled to Cairo to paint three portraits of King Fuad I of Egypt [110671] [4094] [4099] and one of his son, Prince Farouk [4122]. The King was so pleased that he appointed de László a Grand Officer of the Order of Ismail. The artist’s wife Lucy and middle son Paul joined him when the commissions were complete and together they journeyed up the Nile, stopping at Karnak, Luxor and Aswan.

The architecture, landscape and people of Egypt fascinated the artist and the present picture is one of seventeen recorded studies he made there. His biographer Owen Rutter noted that he tried watercolour at this time, something he is not known to have attempted since his internment during the First World War had restricted his access to oil paints.

In her diary entry for 1 March, Lucy recorded de László working on this picture: “Philip has been painting ever since b-fast outside our door, finishing the picture of the hall boy holding a small tray with cups.” Footage of the artist painting a Bisharin warrior [13189] and of himself, Lucy and Paul riding camels survives in the de László Archive.

De László exhibited the picture at the Ferens Art Gallery in the autumn of 1929 and is one of the most expensive pictures in the catalogue, priced at £200. This is the equivalent of £12,600 today and suggests that the artist did not want to part with it. It did not sell and was included in an inventory of the artist’s studio made after his death in 1937.

PROVENANCE:          

In the possession of the artist on his death;

Patrick de Laszlo, son of the artist

EXHIBITED:          

•The Ferens Art Gallery, City of Hull, The Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Autumn 1929, no. 130

•Victoria Art Galleries, Dundee, Exhibition of Recent Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., September, 1932, no. 67

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur. 6-22 January 2004, no. 114, ill.

•BADA Art & Antiques Fair, London, Philip de László: 150th Anniversary Exhibition, 2019, no. 10

LITERATURE:          

•Rutter, Owen. Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 371              

•Schmidt, Nelly. Histoire du métissage, Éditions de La Martinière, Paris, 2003, ill. front cover & p. 159

•Field, Katherine, Philip Alexius de László; 150th Anniversary Exhibition, de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 45, ill. p. 44

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance,

Blackmore, 2024, p.143, ill.

•László, Lucy de, 1929 diary, private collection, 1 March entry, p. 60

KF 2019