DLA095-0097  Transcription

Eve, The Lady’s Pictorial, 7 May 1924

ONE of the parties I most liked going to was at de Laszlo’s studio in Fitzjohn’s Avenue. Such ugly houses there; how can artists bear to live in them? But the studio behind is lovely, all white and gold with tapestries, an old Dutch clock, apple-green velvets, white and gold masks, and an altar-like table, two altar candlesticks on either side of a golden Nativity, and beside a statue, all blue and gold, of the Madonna. That’s the statue in the portrait of his wife, an interior with chest and Madonna and sunshine, and in that sunshine his wife, with her beloved violin [10449].

Inside there are high velvet chairs emblazoned with arms, tables with photos of every celebrity (one of Sir Roger Keyes, who’d just been presiding over the Zeebrugge dinner, with “In grateful remembrance of 1923”), and his superb pictures, including new ones of Lady Londonderry and Princess Andrew of Greece [possibly 6619]. Outside there is a trellis wall, a lawn, a Madonna and Child plaque of great beauty at the entrance to the studio, as, indeed, there is at its outer door, and also a hard court. So you get everything.

He was busy over the placing of one of the Empire pageants. One girl was anxious to go as Wembley, and he was conferring with her as to suitable dress. “Better go in her undies, because her final garments aren’t yet finished," murmured a flippant guest. I was a little tickled, because the Empire pageanters when I left consisted of Mme. Votichenko, that pretty American, married to a Russian, a lady whose husband is attached to the French Embassy, and a girl who was, I think, Dutch. No, I'm wrong. Haidée Wright was in it, too, bless her!

MD

12/11/2007