6222

UNTRACED

Mrs Gerard Leigh, née Helen Goudy 1916

Standing almost full-length, slightly to the right and full-face, wearing a long white evening gown with a richly decorated dark stole and a long necklace, her right arm by her side, her left one raised, both hands holding the stole around her shoulders, all against a dark background

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower right: P A de László / 1916 may.

Laib L7988 (832)/C15 (18)  Mrs. Gerrard [sic] Leigh

NPG Album 1915-16, p. 576

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 101: Helen Gerard Leigh  “   “   “ [beneath the date written by her husband: Nov. 23. 1914]

According to a descendant of the sitter, this portrait and another of the sitter, portraying her in a cornfield, were destroyed by fire whilst in storage. However, according to another member of the family, the portrait was cut down, and remains untraced.

De László also painted a portrait of the sitter’s husband in service dress in 1914 [6215] and a portrait sketch of the sitter with a laurel wreath in her hair [6217] in 1915, probably made in preparation for the present portrait. He also painted a head-and-shoulders portrait study of her in 1934 [6224].

Helen Goudy was born on 5 October 1891, the daughter of Mr. William Judd Goudy (born 1864) of Chicago and his wife Carolyn Walker. In her youth she travelled extensively in Europe, and in January 1909, while in Berlin, she was presented personally to the Kaiser and Kaiserin as she was a friend of Madame de Panza, the wife of the Italian Ambassador to Potsdam. According to The New York Times she was  “introduced by the request of the Italian Embassy, but, being an American was presented by Mrs. [David Jayne] Hill,”^[1] and the same year, in the summer, Mrs. Goudy took Lady Margaret Orr-Ewing’s house in Nine Elms Street, Mayfair, for the season, and gave a ball at the Ritz to introduce Helen to London society. Having established strong connections with the Moncrieffes and the Wallops of Devonshire, both she and her daughter were well received.^[2] The gossip columnist “Lady Mary” thus reported her début to her American readers: “Miss Goudy is not only one of the prettiest American ‘buds’ of the season, but one of the most fascinating. She has had more ‘offers’ than she can remember, and her friends will tell you that such quantities of flowers were sent her for her ‘personal’ decoration the night of her mother’s dance that she had to put heaps of them into the bath attached to her bed room, every available vase and glass having been filled already.”^[3]

Helen Goudy subsequently became one of the most popular American girls in London, and was presented at the Court of St. James on 4 March 1910. The following year, she came to live in England permanently with her widowed mother.

In 1912, it was noted that “Miss Goudy [had] enjoyed the social distinction of having been the house-guest at Potsdam of the Prince and Princess Eitel Fritz of Prussia for several weeks […] One of the most stringent rules which prevails at a Prussian state ball is that no one should reverse in waltzing before the Emperor; neither is the Crown Prince expected to dance with any of the guests, it being his duty merely to talk to ladies of high degree, but at the ball given last year he deliberately broke both of these rules and chose as his partner an American girl, who was not a little embarrassed thereby, as she fully understood the laws of the court.”^[4]

On 4 November 1913, her engagement to Captain John Cecil Gerard Leigh, of the First Life Guards, was announced. He was the son of the late Captain Henry Gerard Leigh of Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, and Marion Lindsay Antrobus of Lower Cheam, Surrey. The wedding took place on 10 December 1913 in London at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square. It was reported that prior to the wedding, Gerard Leigh had already given to his bride “magnificent pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires, and a set of wonderful Russian sables.”^[5] The couple spent their honeymoon in the south of France,^[6] and subsequently lived at Grove Park, Bracknell, Berkshire. During the First World War, Helen was active in nursing work, while her husband was at the front with his regiment. The Tatler noted in September 1914 that Helen had been “seriously ill since her husband’s departure” and “gave birth to twins a few days ago, but unhappily both babies have since died.”^[7] There were subsequently three surviving children of the marriage: William Henry (born 1915), Mary Catherine (born 1917), and Margaret Carolyn (born 1919).

Helen and her husband were well-known members of the Quorn hunt in the 1930s, and maintained a country home is at Thorpe Satchville Hall, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.^[8] She had the reputation of being a fine horsewoman, and enjoyed all outdoor sports. She remained very socially minded throughout her life, and was a keen hostess, who much enjoyed entertaining. The sitter died at Thorpe Satchville Hall on 17 May 1964.^[9] Her husband died in London in December 1967.

MD & CC 2008