6423

Study portrait

Andrew William Mellon 1932

Head only, in profile to the left, the white collar of his shirt just indicated

Oil on canvas board, 75 x 50.2 cm (29 ½ x 19 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1932

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 71: A.W. Mellon Jany 3’ 1932

Sitters’ Book II, f. 71: A. W. Mellon Jan’y 18 1932 / the artist and his subject will disappear; / The portrait remains-

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

This study portrait was executed on 2 January 1932, during sittings for a half-length portrait in the red gown of the University of Harvard [11202], which Andrew Mellon had only commissioned two days earlier. The artist recorded in his diary: “at 11. began a head of Mellon fine had [sic] – strange hesitation in his way to express his Ideas – He also asked me to paint a three quarter leng[t]h of him for the Treasury– which I am happy to do.”^[1]

De László would certainly have completed the present work in one sitting of about two hours. Although it may originally have been intended as a study for the portrait in academic gown, which depicts Mellon full face, it rather anticipates the sitter’s pose in his Treasury three-quarter length portrait [6417].

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [6418].

PROVENANCE:

Presented to Donald D. Shepard, Washington, D.C., by Ailsa Mellon Bruce and Paul Mellon, 1952

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 258, 360

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection

MD 2011