110584

Daisy van Riemsdijk 1909

Half-length slightly to the left, head turned to viewer and looking to the right, a pale blue chiffon stole draped over her shoulders, her hair pinned up with decorative pink flowers

Oil on canvas, 84 x 66 cm (38 ⅛ x 26 in.)

Inscribed, lower right: P.A. László / 1909

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 84: Daisy van Riemsdyk / d. 13ten März 1909.

Private Collection

Marguerite Louise Adrienne van Riemsdijk, known as ‘Daisy,’ was born in The Hague on the 7 January 1889, the daughter of Theodorus Helenus Franciscus van Riemsdyk (1848-1923), Royal Archivist in Holland, and his wife, Adriana Jaqueline Marie, née Loudon (1865-1919). The sitter firstly married Samuel John Barrington Barnadiston (1875-1924) in 1919, and after his death married the Canadian Edmund Arbuckle Burke (1876-1970), with whom she settled in America. She died in Pasadena, California, on 13 August 1968.

Adriana van Riemsdijk’s portrait [110706] was painted in February 1908. The portrait of Theodorus [10774], intended as a pendant to that of his wife, and that of his daughter Daisy were painted in March the following year, while de László was in Holland painting Hugo Loudon [6227] and his mother [6238]. Daisy signed the artist’s sitters’ book on 13 March 1909.

All those aforementioned are fine examples of de László’s study portraits, probably painted in one or two sittings. Daisy’s portrait is more detailed in its depiction of her shawl and coiffure. According to de László’s first biographer, von Schleinitz, the present portrait was painted at The Hague, he described the painting as: “charming, fragrant and yet so modest a beauty that one could give the painting the title The Dream of a Poet.”^[1] 

EXHIBITION:

•Brussels, Salon de Printemps, 1909

•Rome, Esposizione Internazionale di Belle Arti (Hungarian Section), 1911, no. 118

LITERATURE:        

•DLA 1909, Salon de printemps, Brussels, 1909, ill.

•Vita d’Arte, fourth year, vol. VII, no. 39, March 1911, L. Lazzeri, Siena, 1911, pp. 104-8, ill.

•Velhagen & Klasing Monatshefte, August 1911, ill. [incorrectly identified as Mme de Jaunes (Mme Jaunez)]

•Museum: Revista Mensual de Arte Español Antiguo y Moderno y de la Vida Artistica Contemporanea, 3rd  year, no. 8, 1913, p. 299, ill.

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, no. 106, Ph A. von László, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1913, p. 111, ill. p. 93, pl. 109

•Grever, Tonko and Annemieke Heuft (Sandra de Laszlo, British ed.), De László in Holland: Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2006, pp. 8, 54, ill. no. 22

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 106

CWS 2008