DLA123-0097 Transcription
Private
1,CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE,
S.W.
July 29 [19]13.
Dear Mr de Laszlo
Many thanks for your letter re the Lyttelton portrait [37] which I have passed on to the Committee.[1]
A lady who is very looking
[Page 2]
in a picturesque way and has some fame has written to me from Paris and asked whether it would be likely that you would paint her. Her name is Elinor Glyn the novelist She is not very well off
[Page 3]
and I am afraid could not manage anything big.[2] If you were willing to paint her what would be the price of a picture the size of that wicked Cocotte from Paris in the corner of your room?
[Page 4]
You could make a splendid thing of her with her white skin, dark eyebrows green eyes and Venetian red hair. She lives in Paris but comes over here sometimes
Yours ever
Curzon
Editorial Note:
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy of India (1859-1925); for biographical notes, see [3890].
Duplicate item, see also DLA123-0005.
LR
21/08/2019
[1] In 1913, de László painted a copy [37] after his original portrait of The Right Honourable Alfred Lyttelton [6127] for the School Hall at Eton College. Lord Curzon seems to have been part of the committee organising the commission.
[2] In January and February of 1914, de László made a preparatory study [5359] for what was to be a formal three-quarter length portrait of Elinor Glyn, née Sutherland; married name Mrs Clayton Glyn (1864-1943) [5361]. The war broke out, however, and de László, overwhelmed with commissions to paint men leaving for the front, was forced to postpone the painting of the portrait. It was completed in London in December 1914. The agreed fee was 300 guineas (see DLA123-0004, letter from Lord Curzon to de László, 3 August 1912 [for the dating of DLA123-0004, see fn 1 in its transcription]).