3564

Alfred Lys Baldry in Spanish Dress 1918

Half-length, wearing Spanish dress, with a cross on a gold ribbon around his neck, his right hand raised to his face

Oil on canvas, 82.5 x 65.5 cm (32 ½ x 25 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower left: László / 1918. XII.   

Sitters’ Book II, f. 6: A. L. Baldry   June 20th 1916

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 12: A.L. Baldry. / Dec. 14th 1918.

Studio Inventory, p. 8 (45): A. Lys Baldry, Esq. in Spanish Dress

Private Collection

This is one of two portraits de László painted of his great friend Alfred Lys Baldry in Spanish dress in 1918, see also [3562]. It seems that de László wanted to refer to his friend’s Spanish origins and to attest his own great admiration for Spanish portraiture in the grand manner. Baldry was himself an artist as well as a distinguished art critic who wrote for The Studio magazine.

The present portrait was painted at a seminal time in de László’s life and career, whilst the artist was still under house arrest after being interned on unproven suspicion of being an enemy alien. At that time Lys Baldry was the only person outside the artist’s family who was allowed to visit him.

De László painted the sitter on a number of other occasions and his wife Lilli [3559] in 1920. He made a portrait bust of Baldry in 1933 [3583], which was rare in his oeuvre.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [3562].

PROVENANCE:  

In the possession of the artist on his death

EXHIBITED:          

•The Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, Autumn Exhibition, 1938, no. 140

LITERATURE:           

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 133

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, ill. 95

CC 2008