110664

UNTRACED

Henrietta Lowe Bush 1934

Seated full-length facing the viewer, wearing a lace-trimmed party frock with a sash tied in a large bow about her waist, and holding a doll in her left arm

Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower right: de László / N.Y. 1934

Juley PPJ-0058549 / 0058559: Miss Bush Mrs Patterson’s Grandaughter [sic]; Miss Bush

Sitters’ Book II, f. 77: Henrietta Bush Feb. 10-1934

De László painted the sitter’s mother Caroline Lowe Bush in 1932 [111977] and the present portrait was painted in New York in 1934. It was photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son, the fine art photographers the artist used when in America. The artist recorded in his diary that he thought the four-year-old “very intelligent” and “pretty” at the time of her first sitting on 8 February, at which she was accompanied by her mother and grandmother. A preparatory drawing remains untraced, after which the artist began to paint and: “was lucky – inspired – found a very good movement – & began straight the canvas [sic].”^[1] 

Subsequent sittings took place during the morning and afternoon of 9-10 February, and the morning of the 11th.^[2] De László recorded in his diary 12 February: “finished one of my finest childs portrait.”^[3] The sitter’s mother was so pleased with the finished portrait that, to the artist’s surprise, she gave him a kiss.

Henrietta Lowe Bush (1929-1945) was the eldest of the three daughters of James Smith Bush (1901-1978) and his wife Caroline Lowe Patterson (1907-1986). She was named after her maternal grandmother. She was killed in a car accident in which her parents and her sister Flora were injured, on Long Island, New York, on 17 September 1945, aged only 15.^[4]

LITERATURE:

•László, Philip de, 1933-1934 diary, private collection

MD 2016