112801

Mrs William Endicott, née Ellice Mack 1926

Seated three-quarter length to the left, head slightly turned and looking right, wearing a grey silk dress, a transparent fabric with gold detail round her shoulders, a diamond ring and pearl bracelet on her left hand and wrist

Oil on canvas, 147.3 x 104.1 cm (58 x 41 in.)
Inscribed lower right: de László 1926 

Private Collection

De László made his third visit to the United States from October 1925 until early 1926. He had not been there since 1921 and was in high demand from illustrious clients in New York and Washington, D.C. Among those he painted during his visit were President Calvin Coolidge [4169], Andrew Mellon [6418], Adolphus Ochs [6487], proprietor of The New York Times, and George Eastman [4994], founder of Eastman Kodak. The present portrait was painted in New York. The first sitting took place 13 January and the portrait was completed in consecutive sittings over the following three days.

Ellice Mack was born 5 April 1892 in St. John’s Wood, London, to John Mack (1855-1933) and Maude Winifred Laycock (1860-1944). Her father worked in the publishing trade and his brother Robert Ellice Mack was a writer and editor of children’s books. According to the New York Times,^[1] the sitter was an “English stage beauty” at the time she met her husband Lieutenant Colonel William Endicott III (1865-1941) of Boston, son of William Endicott, Jr. and Annie Thorndike Nourse. During the First World War he served as American Red Cross Commissioner to Great Britain. They married at St Paul’s Church in Hampstead, London, 27 March 1919.^[2] Shortly after their marriage, her husband resigned his commission with the Red Cross, and they moved to Boston, where he resumed his duties at the banking firm of Kidder, Peabody, & Co. In 1920 they purchased a home at 274 Clarendon, in the Back Bay area of Boston, where they lived until his death in 1941. The couple also maintained a home in Pride’s Crossing, Beverly, Massachusetts. There were no children of the marriage.

The sitter was an avid tennis player. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s her name appears in The New York Times and other publications as a prominent participant in tournaments. In her later years she was a serious amateur painter. She died 25 April 1973 and is buried at Central Cemetery in Beverly, Massachusetts.  

PROVENANCE:

The Sitter;

Anonymous Private Charitable Institution;

Bonhams, London, 14 March 2018, lot. 110;

Richard Green Fine Paintings, London

KF 2017