3842

Constance Guinness, later Mrs Ernest Craig-Brown 1902

Head and shoulders to the right, her face in three-quarter profile turned towards the viewer and looking to the right, wearing a black dress with a wide white frilled collar, against a red background

Oil on canvas, 48.9 x 38.8 cm (19 ¼ x 15 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower right: To Connelly / Fülöp / 1902   

Sitters’ Book I, f. 23: In rememberance of Rotheneuf  / 1902 Aug 22. / Constance Guinness.

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 64: Constance Craig Brown

Private Collection

This portrait of Constance Guinness was painted by de László in Brittany in September 1902. Constance was one of his sisters-in-law, the artist having married Lucy, a member of the banking branch of the Guinness family, in June 1900.

It was in July 1902, in between periods of intense work on two large group portraits of the de Gramont family, that de László joined Lucy, Constance, and his friend the art historian Gábor de Térey for a holiday in Rothéneuf, near Saint-Malo. As was typical for the artist, this was not a restful trip: as well as painting and drawing several girls in Breton dress [2544] [8978] [111883], and executing a genre painting of a young Breton widow with her two children [8984]. During the two months he spent there, de László made portrait drawings of his holiday companions, a large three-quarter length portrait in oil of Lucy [11474], and the present portrait of her sister Constance.

As Lucy recorded in her diary at the time: “He […] has done a head in oils of Con. & two red chalk of her – one of Térey [presently untraced] - & many kleine Skitzzen.^[1]”.^[2] One of the two red chalk drawings of Constance mentioned shows her wearing a hat [3846], whilst the second is a worked-up preparatory study for the present portrait, in the same pose, but head only, inscribed “Souvenir de Rotheneuf”, and dated September 1902 [3840].

The warm palette adopted for this intimate portrait, notably its maroon background, is typical of de László’s early works. It is the only one he painted of “Connely” (Constance’s nickname).

Constance Ellen Guinness was born on 7 April 1876, the youngest of the twelve children of Henry Guinness and his wife Emmelina Brown of Burton Hall, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin. In 1903, she married Captain Ernest Craig-Brown [3876], of The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. She spent much of her married life in India where her husband was Brigadier-General commanding the Cameron Highlanders in Karachi, Simla and Kashmir. They had two daughters, Jean [3881] and Bridget [3837] and a son, Alan [3829]. Constance died on 22 December 1964, aged eighty-eight.

PROVENANCE:

Biddy Craig-Brown, daughter of the sitter;

By descent in the family;

Sold at Christie’s King Street on 15 June 1911, lot 74

LITERATURE:

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 64, ill. p. 31

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, private collection

CC 2011