112261

VERSO

Preparatory work

Arthur Hamilton Lee 1908

Head only in three-quarter profile to the right, head turned and looking to the viewer

Oil on board, 67.3 x 48.9 cm (26 ½ x 19 ¼ in.)

Inscribed verso: Abandoned study for the same portrait 

The Administrative Trustees of the Chequers Estate

This is the abandoned study for the study portrait that is on the recto side of the artist board [6175]. De László regularly re-used his boards and many of them remained in his studio on his death.

De László met Arthur Lee and his American wife Ruth Moore at a garden party at Windsor in the summer of 1907. Having admired de László’s works at the Fine Art Society earlier that year, Arthur Lee commissioned a formal portrait of himself, completed later in 1907 [11019]. One of the Lees’ visitors’ books^[1] reveals that the following year, the artist spent at least two weeks in July and August with the Lees in Scotland at Glendoe Lodge. There he painted a three-quarter length portrait of Ruth Lee [6184].

The present work must have been executed during this holiday, to mark the two couples’ blossoming friendship. Two further portraits, one in oil, left unfinished [6181], and the other in charcoal on paper [6178], were also probably done during the same visit.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [11019]. Recto is Arthur Hamilton Lee, Viscount Lee of Fareham [6175].

PROVENANCE:

Bequeathed to Chequers by Lady Lee upon her death, 1966  

LITERATURE:

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, 31 December 1907 entry, p. 137

EXHIBITED:

•Agnew’s, London, Exhibitions of Portraits by Philip A. László, M.V.O., May-June 1911, no. 29

CC 2008