9994

Alexander Laughlin 1919

Seated three-quarter length in semi-profile to the left, holding a ball in his lap with his right hand

Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 50.75 cm (25 x 20 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1919. IX.

Laib L10035 (140) / C15 (8): Laughlin Child

NPG Album1917-21, p. 55

Private Collection

De László painted the sitter’s father Irwin Boyle Laughlin [11149] in 1912, his mother [9969] in 1916 and his sister, Gertrude [11153] in 1919. A second portrait of Gertrude [9998] painted in 1919 remains in the same family collection as the present portrait.

It was painted at Reigate Priory, Surrey where the Laughlin family resided from 1917 to 1919, and where de László stayed in September 1919 when commissioned to paint the portrait of the sitter’s sister.^[1] A letter from de László to Irwin Laughlin dated 2 October 1919, gives the fees for the present portrait and that of his sister: “my honorarium for your little daughter’s portrait is 800 guineas, [and] for Alexander’s 300…We were so very pleased to see you all here before your departure – and we feel it very much that you leave England.”^[2] 

The present portrait was shown in de László’s exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1921, alongside the portraits of the sitter’s mother and sister. “There is no finer example of his art,” wrote one critic, “than Mrs. Irwin Laughlin's portrait in its beautiful reserve and simplicity and her two children ‘Alexander’ and ‘Gertrude’ are among the happiest expressions of the artist’s work.”^[3]

The sitter was the son of Irwin Boyle Laughlin (1871-1941) and Thérèse Eleanora Iselin (1881-1958). He was born 11 April 1918 at Reigate Priory, Surrey, during the Laughlin family’s tenancy of the house from 1917 to 1919.^[4] At the time of the publication of his grandfather’s will in 1935, he was described as “Alexander Laughlin, of Stratton-on-the-Fosse, England.”^[5] He died later that year of pneumonia, aged only seventeen.

EXHIBITED:

•The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Paintings by Philip A. de László, 26 February-20 March 1921, no. 20

LITERATURE:

•The Washington Post, Sunday, 13 March 1921, p. 7

•DLA075-0076, Letter from Irwin Boyle Laughlin to de László, 14 August 1919

•DLA109-0220, Letter from de László to James Brown Scott, 9 July 1921

MD 2016