3488

Study portrait

Princess Henry of Battenberg, née Princess Beatrice of Great Britain 1926

Head and shoulders to the left, her face in profile, wearing a choker and drop earrings

Oil on canvas board, 40.7 x 32.7 cm (16 ⅛ x 13 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / VIII. 1926. 

NPG Album, 1925-27, p. 19

The Royal Collection Trust

De László probably first met Princess Beatrice when he was painting members of the Spanish Royal Family in Madrid in 1910, although he had painted her brother-in-law, Prince Louis of Battenberg (later 1st Marquess of Milford Haven) in 1909 [3464] and other members of the Battenberg family two years before that. He had already painted a half-length portrait of Princess Beatrice in 1912 [3485].

On 2 July 1926 Princess Beatrice attended a reception at de László’s home in Fitzjohn’s Avenue together with her son, the Marquess of Carisbrooke (whom de László had painted in 1920 [6613]), to view de László’s recently completed portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson [4632].^[1] The following week he finished in London his fourth portrait of Queen Ena of Spain, Princess Beatrice’s daughter, during a private visit of the King and Queen. This painting was presented to Princess Beatrice by her daughter. Immediately afterwards de László left for Normandy for a cure for troublesome varicose veins in his leg caused “through so much standing.”^[2] The year had been a busy one and his many hours at the easel were taxing on his health. On his return he wrote to a friend “As you know how important my legs are, I did my best to help the cure and I feel very much better for it.^[3]”

On 12 August he and Lucy went to stay with Princess Beatrice at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, apparently for a holiday; but while there de László began a head study of Princess Beatrice, a small, rather severe portrait showing the sitter full face [3375]. This, however, he abandoned and the sketch remained unsigned, as was so often the case with de László’s unfinished portraits, in the artist’s possession until his death. The present study, approximately the same size as the abandoned study, shows the sitter wearing the same choker as in the first version, but in full profile, which is unusual in de László’s oeuvre. A recent biographer of Princess Beatrice writes of the present portrait: “[it] is a handsome image showing her in profile, her face thinner with age; not crushed by the years but wise and kindly, staring into the distance, as always in Beatrice’s case avoiding contact with the viewer.”^[4] While at Carisbrooke Castle de László also took the opportunity to make a couple of landscape studies [3283] & [3525], as well as a drawing for the Comptroller of the Princess’s Household, Sir Victor Corkran.^[5] De László left the Isle of Wight on 21 August to take his wife and two younger sons on a needed family holiday in Northern Italy.

Princess Beatrice was born at Buckingham Palace on 14 April 1857, the youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. After the death of the Prince Consort in 1861, Princess Beatrice (or ‘Baby’ as she was always known by the Queen) remained her mother’s constant companion providing her with solace in her grief. A vivacious child, she learnt languages well, was a competent artist and became an excellent pianist. The Queen doted on her daughter, but her over-protectiveness and reliance on her meant that it was assumed that the shy, reserved but attractive princess would never marry. Following the marriage of her niece Victoria of Hesse to Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884, however, Princess Beatrice announced her intention of marrying his younger brother Henry, known as Liko. Despite the initial reluctance of the Queen, their marriage took place at Wippingham Church, near Osborne on the Isle of Wight on 23 July 1885, whereupon Queen Victoria appointed Prince Henry Governor of the Isle of Wight, ostensibly to keep her daughter on the island and close to her at Osborne House. In ten years of marriage they had three sons, Alexander, later 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, (1886-1960), Leopold (1889-1922) and Maurice (1891-1914), and a daughter, Victoria Eugénia, ‘Ena’ (1887-1969), who married King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1906.

The quiet life of the island, however, bored Prince Henry and in 1895 he volunteered to join the expedition to fight the second Ashanti war during which he contracted a fever and died in January 1896 aged 37. Fearing her daughter would now leave her, Queen Victoria appointed Princess Beatrice to succeed him as Governor of the Isle of Wight and she continued to be the Queen’s companion and unofficial private secretary.

When the Queen died in 1901 she bequeathed to Princess Beatrice her private journal with the instruction that she edit it ruthlessly. This she carried out faithfully for the rest of her life. She had also inherited Osborne Cottage on her mother’s death, but in 1912 moved into the Governor’s house, Carisbrooke Castle.

Queen Victoria also passed on to her daughter the gene that carries haemophilia; Princess Beatrice’s second son, Leopold, died of the disease aged 32, and through her daughter it was transmitted to the Spanish Royal family. Her youngest son, Maurice, died of wounds in 1914.^[6] Despite these tragedies, she refused to retire with her grief as her mother had done, and the stout and kindly princess remained a popular figure on the Isle of Wight with her constant support of good causes, particularly hospitals and the Girl Guides. On 26 October 1944, she died aged eighty-seven at Brantridge Park, Sussex, the home of her niece, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, where she had lived since 1940.

PROVENANCE:  

Daughter of the sitter, Queen Victoria Eugénia of Spain, Villa Vieille Fontaine, Lausanne, Switzerland;

By descent in the family;

Sold at auction at Sotheby’s, London, on 28 October 2008;

Private Collection;

Sold Christie’s, London, 12 December 2012, lot 73;

The Royal Collection Trust

EXHIBITED:

•Palacio Arte Moderno, Biblioteca Nacional, May 1927 (to be confirmed)

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1927, no. 17

LITERATURE:          

•Blanco y Negro, 37th year, no 1876, Madrid, Sunday 1 May 1927, p. 28, ill.

•The Illustrated London News, 11 June 1927, p. 1030, ill.

•Duff, David, The Shy Princess: The Life of Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter and constant companion of Queen Victoria, Evans Brothers Ltd., London, 1958, ill. pl. between pp. 240-241

•Dennison, Matthew, The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Daughter, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2007, p.253, ill. between pp. 206 & 207

•Munn, Geoffrey, Wartski: The First One Hundred and Fifty Years, Antique Collectors Club, 2015, p. 162, ill.

•Fryman, Olivia, and Edwards, Sebastian, Kensington Palace: Art, Architecture and Society (Studies in British Art), Paul Mellon Center for British Arts, 2018, ill. p. 241

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance,

Blackmore, 2024, p. 136, ill. p. 26

•DLA040-0089, letter to Senator Louis Frotheringham, 23 August 1926

•DLA063-0016, letter from Sir Victor Corkran, 1 Sept. 1926

CWS 2008