5526

The Honourable Mrs Edward Lascelles, née Joan Eleanor Campell Balfour 1927

Standing three-quarter length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing black hunting dress with a white stock, holding a hunting whip and gloves in her left hand, her right raised to the lapel of her jacket

Oil on canvas, 129.6 x 83.9cm (51 x 33 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1927

Laib L14951 / C5(3)

Sitters’ Book II, f. 55: Joan Lascelles [in the hand of the artist: London / 15 July / 1927]

The Earl and Countess of Harewood and the Trustees of the Harewood House Trust

De László painted a number of portraits of ladies in riding dress, among them: Henriette Cremer [4201], pendant portraits of the Meeking sisters, Lady Somers [7187] in 1925 and Lady Apsley [3537] in 1926, and Charlotte Ives Montgomery [11220] in 1931. All are portrayed as confident and commanding, a reflection of the artist’s admiration for strong female personalities. The present picture was included in two of de László’s most important solo exhibitions, at the French Gallery in 1929 and the Charpentier exhibition in Paris in 1931,  indicating that the artist was particularly proud of the portrait.

Joan Eleanor Campbell Balfour was born in 1889, the daughter of Eustace James Anthony Balfour (1854-1911) and his wife, Lady Frances Campbell (1858-1931), daughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll. She grew up in London at 32 Addison Road, Kensington and spent many holidays at Whittingehame, East Lothian, the home of her uncle the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour [2707]. On 11 March 1915 she married the Hon. Edward Cecil Lascelles (1887-1935), the second son of the 5th Earl of Harewood. There were no children of the marriage. Her husband’s brother Henry, the 6th Earl, married Princess Mary, only daughter of George V and Queen Mary.

Edward Lascelles served with distinction in the First World War and received the Military Cross and D.S.O. After the war he was assisted by his wife in his role as private secretary to Arthur Balfour [2707], who stayed with them frequently at their home, Linton Springs, Wetherby, Yorkshire. She had a keen mind for politics and literature and was described as a “witty member of a witty family.”^[1] 

The sitter and her husband were sporting enthusiasts and followers of the Bramham Moor Hounds. The Earl of Harewood and his brother served as joint Masters, before retiring in 1931. She had a very near miss at their opening meet in 1929 when her horse fell on the newly surfaced roads and her habit became entangled on the side saddle as the horse scrambled up and reared. Tragedy averted, she showed more concern for the horse’s cut legs than herself and carried on with the day’s hunting on a borrowed mount.^[2] 

She and her husband had a devoted relationship and she was with him as he died, aged only forty-eight, of cerebral toxemia at home in Yorkshire. Messages of condolence were received from King George and Queen Mary: “We grieve with you in the loss of your dear husband, and send you our deep sympathy in your time of great sorrow.”^[3] Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll [2599] also wrote. After his funeral and burial in the family vault at Harewood House, she moved to The Hill in Lutterworth, Leicestershire.

On 10 May 1939 she was found mortally wounded in the grounds of her estate with a gunshot wound to the head. An inquest revealed that she knew she was dying of cancer when she decided to take her own life. Her sister Blanche wrote in her diary that day: “a hard, proud, courage never submitting to defeat”’^[4] Mrs Lascelles is buried at Whittingehame, East Lothian.

EXHIBITED:

•McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Sixty-Sixth Annual  Exhibition, 1927, no. 297

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., May-June, 1929, no. 14

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., July 1929, no. 34

•Hotel Jean Charpentier, Paris, Exposition P. A. de László, June  1931, no. 63

•Harewood House, The Horse at Harewood, 26 September-1 November 2009

LITERATURE:

•“Art in Glasgow: Sixty-Sixth Exhibition of the Royal Institute,” Aberdeen Press and Journal, Friday, 30 September 1927

•“A Laszló Anniversary: New Portraits in an exhibition in Honour of his 60th Birthday,” The Graphic, 25 May 1929, p. 384, ill.

KF 2021