5954

Study portrait

Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark 1934

Head-and-shoulders slightly to the left, full-face looking to the viewer, a cream off-the-shoulder dress or blouse just indicated

Oil on board, 80.7 x 62.9 cm (31 ¾ x 24 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / PARIS 1934.  X   

NPG 1934 Album, p. 35a

Sitters’ Book II, f. 79: Marina / Princess of Greece / and Denmark / Sept. 26-1934

Private Collection        

The present portrait was given by the artist to Prince George, Duke of Kent and Princess Marina on the occasion of their marriage, on 29 November 1934. It was executed in Paris in October 1934, not long after the artist painted the official portrait of the sitter [5928] in his London studio at the request of Prince and Princess Nicholas of Greece. During the same sittings for the present portrait, de László painted a remarkable portrait of Princess Marina in three-quarter profile [5957], but eventually decided on this full-face version for this wedding gift to the couple.

A year later, de László was requested to paint Prince George [5952] as a pair to the present portrait for the exhibition of British Art in Toronto, which portrait remained in the possession of the artist, as did the three-quarter profile study of the Princess.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [5928].

EXHIBITED:

•Palace of Art, Toronto, Fifty-Seventh Canadian National Exhibition, 23 August -7 September 1935

•Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., London, Exhibition of Paintings by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., In Aid of the London Hospital and The Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, November-December 1937, no. 16

LITERATURE:

•Wedding Present List of H.R.H. the Duke of Kent and Princess Marina, 29 Nov 1934, no. 1048: Mr. P.A. László de Lombos. Portrait of  H.R.H. Princess Marina by the donor

•Ellison, Grace, The Authorised Life Story of Princess Marina, London, 1934, p. 150

•Apollo, Vol. 20, No. 120, December 1934, opp. p. 293 (frontispiece).

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 374

•The Sphere, 24 August 1935, p. 291, ill.

•The Illustrated London News, 6 April 1935, p. i, ill.

•A Political History of Contemporary Greece, Volume III 1924-1932, by Styros Markezinis, Athens Ed. 1977 p. 385

•King, Stella, Princess Marina Her life and times, London, 1969, ill. frontispiece

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 254, 266

•DLA162-0465, Pesti Hírlap, 27 September 1934, p. 8

•László, Philip de, June-November 1935 diary, private collection, 1 November 1935 entry, p. 145

•DLA162-0479, “László Fülöpöt az angol sajtó az arcképfestészet legnagyobb hősei közé sorozza” [Philip de László is Ranked Among the Greatest Heros of Portrait Painting by the English Press], Pesti Hírlap, 28 November 1937, p. 14

CC 2008