2335

Preparatory drawing

Arthur James Balfour 1914

Seated three-quarter length to the left, wearing a gown over a suit and tie, holding an open book on his knee

Soft pencil heightened with white on a page from a sketchbook, 154.3 x 113.7 cm (21 ⅞ x 14 ⅞ in.)

Inscribed lower left: Balfour / 1914 June / for Trinity Cambridge -  

Inscribed top right: page number: 42 [pencil]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 97: Arthur James Balfour / June 27. 1914.

Private Collection

This is one of the two known preparatory works for the three-quarter length portrait of Arthur James Balfour [2707]. The final portrait, in which the sitter is represented in the same pose as in the present drawing and subsequent oil sketch, [2708] hangs at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the staircase to the Library. De László had previously painted two portraits of the sitter in 1908 [2705] & [111255].

PROVENANCE:           

In the possession of the artist on his death

LITERATURE:              

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 293

CC 2008