10077

Study portrait

Muriel Thetis Wilson 1915

Head and shoulders in three-quarter profile to the right, wearing Red Cross nursing uniform

Oil on canvas, 58 x 43 cm (22 ⅞ x 17 in.)

Inscribed, lower right: P.A. de László / London 1915. XII.

Laib L7858 (58) / C28 (9): Miss Maria Wills [sic]

NPG 1915-16 Album, p. 78: Miss Muriel Wilson / study which I gave to be sold for charity / at the Albert Hall / 1915

Sitter’s Book I, opp. f. 102: Muriel Thetis Wilson Nov. 30th 1915

Private Collection

De László was a regular contributor to charities raising money for the First World War and donated the present picture to ‘The Christmas in War-Time Sale, in Aid of the Professional Classes’ held at the Royal Albert Hall over three days in December 1915. Other leading artists who contributed to the sale were: John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, Ambrose McEvoy, William Nicholson, Augustus John and John Lavery. The artist helped raise £4500 for the British Red Cross during the war.^[1] The portraits that resulted from these blank canvas auctions are: Francis Trippel [111058] and Mrs Philip Haldin [5556], and Mrs Dayrell Crackanthorpe [1784].

After the sale, Muriel Wilson wrote to de László that the painting sold, “ten minutes after the sale opened to the Duke of Marlborough, who collects modern pictures and is a very old friend of mine.”^[2] The sitter had been engaged to the 9th Duke when she was younger but had broken off the engagement and he subsequently married the American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. The artist painted the duchess’ cousin Gladys Vanderbilt, Countess Széchényi [4238] in 1921. Muriel asked that de László keep the Duke’s identity as the purchaser a secret and he later presented the portrait to the sitter.

During the First World War, Muriel Wilson served as a Red Cross nurse at Dorchester House, London. This was the residence of her brother-in-law Lieutenant Colonel Sir George Holford, which had been requisitioned as a convalescent hospital for officers.

He must have been very proud of the present portrait as he exhibited it some time later at one of his prestigious exhibitions at the French Gallery, London in 1924. This is the first of three portraits de László painted of Muriel Wilson: she sat again in January 1916 for two half-length portraits [7759] [2014]. He also painted her mother, Mrs Arthur Wilson [7032], in 1915.

For biographical notes on the sitter see [7759].

PROVENANCE:

Purchased by the 9th Duke of Marlborough at the ‘Christmas in War-Time Sale’, 1915;

Presented to the sitter by the Duke of Marlborough;

Bequeathed by the sitter to Gwennie Pitt

EXHIBITED:

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1924, no. 40, ill.

LITERATURE:            

•The Sketch, 1917, p. 169, ill.

•The Illustrated London News, ‘Society Women Seen by a Great Painter: de Laszlo Portraits’, 5 July, 1924, p. 20, ill.

•Attwood, Gertrude M., The Wilsons of Tranby Croft, Hutton Press, Beverley, 1988

•Cleggett, David A.H., The Filmers and the Wilsons, 1255-1968, privately printed, 2005

•DLA085-0068, letter from Muriel Wilson to de László, 15 December 1915

KF 2021