7084

Mrs Oswald Sanderson, née Beatrice Beddall  1917

Seated three-quarter length in a carved wood, upholstered chair, wearing a blue and gold patterned stole over her white evening dress, a gold sash round her waist, her right hand raised to her breast, holding the long pearl necklace which hangs round her neck, her left hand resting over the arm of the chair, holding a small book

Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 103.5 cm (60 x 40 ¾ in.)

Inscribed top left: de László / 1917 June   

Laib L8522 (529) / C24 (4): Mrs. Sander [sic]

NPG 1917-21 Album, p. 13

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 10: Beatrice Sanderson -  June 1st 1917

The Ferens Art Gallery, Guildhall Collection, Hull

The composition of the present portrait: the sitter’s direct gaze, her nonchalant posture, also her white evening dress, all evoke John Singer Sargent’s seminal portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw,^[1] which may well have been a source of inspiration for de László here. Andrew Wilton has observed, Joshua Reynolds’s Mrs Siddons as Tragic Muse may also have been in de László’s mind when he executed the present portrait, and certainly was when he painted the portrait of Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1926 [4632].

The present portrait was commissioned by Mrs Arthur Wilson [7032] in early March 1917 as a pendant to Oswald Sanderson’s portrait [7082]. Sanderson had been Managing Director of the Wilson Shipping Line and his portrait, together with the present picture, its companion piece, was to be presented to him on the occasion of the sale of the company to Sir John Ellerman, Bt. Mrs Wilson’s late husband, who died in 1909, had been Chairman and owner of the company and Oswald Sanderson worked for him over almost his entire career.

The art dealer Lockett Agnew acted as an agent between his friend de László and Mrs Wilson. She originally chose a half-length format for Mr Sanderson’s portrait and presumably for the present pendant,^[2] but de László had already set his mind on a three-quarter length format for the portrait of Oswald Sanderson, which probably explains why the present portrait was painted in the same format. Once completed, on 16 July 1917, the pair was sent to Lockett Agnew’s gallery at 43 Old Bond Street, where they were shown to the Wilson family.^[3] 

Beatrice M. F. Beddall was the daughter of Edward F. Beddall of New York. She married Oswald Sanderson (1863-1926) in 1888. In 1900, the couple left New York for England, where Oswald became Managing Director of the Wilson Line, later Ellerman’s Wilson line, a large shipping company in Hull. The Sandersons established themselves at Hessle Mount, Hessle, East Yorkshire and at 2 Mansfield Street, London. There were four children of the marriage: Oswald B. and John F. Sanderson, who both served in the army in India, both attaining the rank of Major.; E. Lloyd Sanderson, who later became Vice President of Ellerman’s Wilson Line in New York, and a daughter, Zoe. Mrs Sanderson died in London in March 1956, after thirty years of widowhood.

PROVENANCE:  

The Trustees of the Estate of Mr Oswald Sanderson;

Bequeathed to Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 1956

EXHIBITED:          

•Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, From Steer to Spencer, 24 July-24 September 2000

•Museums and Art Gallery Service for Yorkshire, Pictures from the Ferens Art Gallery, 1964, nº 10

LITERATURE:

•The New York Times, March 23, 1956

•Edwardian Portraits, Kenneth McConkey, Antique Collectors Club, 1987, pp. 244-5, ill. p. 245

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 57

•DLA117-0044, letter from Lockett Agnew to de László, 5 March 1917

•DLA117-0046, letter from Lockett Agnew to de László, 13 July 1917

CC 2008