5515

RECTO

Study portrait

Elaine Greffulhe, duchesse de Gramont, wife of Antoine XII-Armand, 12th duc 1923

Head-and-shoulders in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing a cream shirt under a deep blue wrap or jacket

Oil on board, 82 x 61.6 cm (32 ¼ x 24 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower right: in devotion to the Duchess / Paris 1923 / de László [pencil]

Sitters’ Book II, f. 38: La Duchesse de Guiche / 7 Déc 1924 

Maison de Gramont Collection, Musée National et Domaine du Château de Pau

De László frequently worked in Paris and used the studio of his great friend Armand de Gramont, located in the duc and duchesse’s hôtel particulier, 42 bis avenue Henri-Martin. In his unpublished memoirs he wrote of de László: “When he came to Paris, he painted in the studio which I had arranged in my house in the avenue Henri Martin and on each of these occasions he made of my wife, myself or my children one of those quick sketches which constitute, I believe, the best of his work. It is thus that I find myself head of a veritable gallery of Laszlo [sic] pictures.”^[1]

The present vivid portrait study, executed at great speed, counts amongst them, and there may yet be more ‘snapshots in oil’ of the sitter, painted in similar circumstances and currently untraced.

For biographical notes on the sitter see [8804].

Verso is David Field Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty [112250].

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

EXHIBITED:          

Musée National du Château de Pau, La belle époque des Gramont au temps des équipages, 7 October 1994-31 January 1995, handlist nº 41

LITERATURE:

•Gramont, Armand, 12th duc de, Unpublished Memoirs, in possession of a descendant of the author, p. 132

CC 2008