7071

POSTHUMOUS

The Honourable Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer 1916

Head and shoulders slightly to the left, looking full face to the viewer, wearing a dark suit and waistcoat with a silver cross on his watch chain, a white shirt and dark red tie

Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 50.8 cm (27 ¾ x 20 in.)

Inscribed lower left: 1916   

Private Collection

De László primarily used the sight-size technique^[1] and as such was always very reluctant to paint from photographs, usually declining such commissions. He did not have the heart to refuse appeals from patrons and close friends who had lost their sons during the First World War and painted posthumous portraits of Prince Maurice of Battenberg [3501] for Princess Henry of Battenberg [3485], of Major Lord Charles Mercer Nairne [11578], second son of Lord [5960] and Lady Lansdowne [5969], of Lieutenant Arthur Burn [111215] for Lord Leith of Fyvie, and the present portrait of Robert Palmer, the second son of the Earl of Selborne [6965].

Because his posthumous portraits have a certain flatness that distinguishes them from his other works, de László tended either not to sign them, as in the present instance, or to indicate that it was painted from a photograph. This portrait was made after a photograph by Elliot & Fry taken in 1911, when Robert Palmer was twenty-three. The Earl of Selborne later told de László that his son’s portrait was “a miracle of consolation.”^[2]

The Honourable Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer was born on 26 September 1888, the son of William Waldegrave Palmer, later 2nd Earl of Selborne [6965], and his wife Lady Maud Cecil [7052]. Like his father and his elder brother, Roundell Cecil Palmer [7069], he was educated at Winchester, where he excelled, between 1902 and 1907. He won a University College scholarship at Oxford, “heading the list as Senior Scholar out of one hundred and fifty-seven candidates,”^[3] and studied Classics. There, he was elected President of the Oxford University Church Union and President of the Union Society. An outstanding student, he graduated from Oxford with a First. New College wanted to secure him as a Fellow and a Dean of Divinity, but he opted to read Law at the Inner Temple instead. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple, but his promising career was cut short when he received a commission in the 6th (Territorial) Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment, in July 1914. He was killed in action in Mesopotamia on 21 January 1916, aged twenty-seven. His aunt, Lady Laura Ridding, published the story of his short life in 1921.

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 306-07

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 149

•Field, Katherine, Philip Alexius de László; 150th Anniversary Exhibition, de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 14

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 34

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 152

CC 2011