11222

Mrs George Sandys, née Dulcie Redford 1916

Oil on canvas, 241.3 x 125.7 cm (95 x 49 ½ in.)

Inscribed upper left: P. A. László / 1916

NPG 1915-16, p. 83 where dated 1916 by the artist

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 61: D.E.A. Sandys / 26-1-16

Private Collection

This portrait of Mrs George Sandys is influenced by Van Dyck’s portrait of Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle. He saw that portrait in 1911, while staying at Wentworth Woodhouse painting Countess Fitzwilliam and her family.^[1] This demonstrates how the artist’s extraordinary visual memory influenced his compositions throughout his career. His portraits are rarely direct quotations but rather suggestions, though the reference to Van Dyck in Countess Fitzwilliam’s portrait is more obvious since it depicts the sitter in front of the portrait of her ancestor Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl Stafford. Such works exemplify de László’s artistic lineage as a successor in the Grand Manner style to portraitists such as Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Lawrence.

De László was privileged to view masterpieces by these artists in private collections throughout Europe while staying with his aristocratic sitters. The Equestrian Portrait of Charles I in the National Gallery in London made an important impact on the artist during his first visit to the city in 1898. The following year he travelled to Antwerp to see the Van Dyck exhibition at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts. Throughout his life he sought out great works of art in order to learn from the masters he admired. Such was the case in 1933 when he sought help from Marchesa Marconi: “It is most kind of you to write to Genoa in regard to my visits to a few of the Palaces to see the Vandyck portraits, and I hope especially to be able to see the Balbi and Doria galleries.”^[2] 

Although Britain was entering the second year of the First World War when Mrs Sandys was painted, there was no shortage of demand for portraits. In 1916 de László painted six full-length or nearly full-length portraits in the Grand Manner style as well as portraits of many soldiers in khaki. The Duchess of Northumberland invited the artist to view a print of another Van Dyck portrait of the Countess of Carlisle as inspiration for her own full-length portrait now at Alnwick Castle.^[3] At this date de László was charging an honorarium of about £1000 for a portrait of this size, a significant sum in times of war when a trooper of the 4th Cavalry Brigade fighting in France was earning the equivalent of £5 a day.^[4] 

Dulcie Edythe Angela Redford was born on 13 December 1893 in Ayr, Scotland, the daughter of Sir Edward Redford and his wife Florence Buckton from Leeds. She was known as one of the ‘Three Belles’ of Edinburgh and on 22 April 1914 married George Owen Sandys (1884 – 1973) at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. They lived between Greythwaite Hall, Lancashire, and Grosvenor Street in London where she preferred the society of town life. Mrs Sandys died aged seventy-nine on 1 May 1973, just six weeks after her husband.

EXHIBITED:        

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur, 6–22 January 2004, no. 64

•Tate Britain, London, Van Dyck and Britain, 18 February–17 May 2009, no. 133

KF 2024