2449

Anny Ahlers as Madame Dubarry 1933

Seated full-length in three-quarter profile to the left with her elbows resting on a table, holding a red rose in her right hand and her left hand to her cheek, wearing a full white opera gown shot with blue and decorated with blue and pink ribbons, an emerald ring on both her right and left hand, a wide gold bracelet on her left wrist, a fan before her on the table and a green curtain behind on the left

Oil on canvas, 172.7 x 116.9 cm (68 x 46 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1933 - 

Laib L 17804 (531) / C1 (11); L91 / 22A (28)

NPG 1933 Album, p. 10

Sitter’s Book II, opp. f. 74: Anny Ahlers 26 XI 32

Private Collection

In 1932, Sir Merrik Burrell, Bt. was taken by his daughter Dreda to see a performance given by Anny Ahlers, the beautiful and talented German actress and singer. She was playing the leading role, Jeanne in The Dubarry and is depicted in her stage costume. Recently divorced from his second wife, he was immediately smitten by Anny and commissioned de László to paint a half-length portrait of her. Although Merrik Burrell, in his correspondence with de László, often referred to her as a “child”^[1] or even a “daughter”,^[2] he urged the artist, before a party where they were going to see each other, not to reveal he was the commissioner of Anny Ahlers’s portrait: “Also do not forget that the picture of A.A. is a tribute of one artist to another.”^[3]

Sir Merrik had in mind the sort of portrait that leading ladies, especially on the Continent, would display in the foyers of theatres. De László, faced with a sitter of such striking appearance, found the commission too subdued, and embarked upon the present full-length portrait.

However, overworked and pressurized by her impresario, Anny Ahlers suffered from bouts of depression and often failed to appear for the appointed sittings, which upset de László greatly.^[4] Then, on 14 March 1933, aged only twenty-six, she fell from the balcony of her room next to His Majesty’s Theatre in Haymarket, London, and died instantly on the pavement below from a broken neck. The portrait was unfinished. Dreda Burrell was persuaded to sit for the completion of the painting, wearing Anny’s stage costume. She recalled de László painting the actress’s hands, shoulders and slippers as she posed for him. Contemporary photographs exist of the portrait both in its unfinished and finished states. The emerald ring on Anny’s left hand was a present from Sir Merrik and remains in the possession of his family.

De László himself explained how the portrait was completed: “I have the dress, and Dreda sat for me. I was lucky in being able to finish the head, and her beautiful hands. She was a most delightful personality, and a born genius, and the world is the poorer for her death. I am afraid she had been overworked by one man whose name I do not wish to mention, who tried to make as much money out of her as possible.”^[5]

The portrait was exhibited to great acclaim at Knoedler’s gallery that June under the title The Late Miss Anny Ahlers, and coloured reproductions of it were sold in aid of the Artists’ Benevolent Fund. The Daily Mail wrote: “by the liveliness of Mr de László’s rendering [it is] a melancholy reminder of the fragility of life.”^[6] The Star pointed out that “ever since the exhibition opened the portrait of poor Anny Ahlers has been the centre of an admiring group, and a bowl of Du Barry roses stands in front of it.”^[7] 

Following Anny Ahlers’s tragic death, de László decided to wave his honorarium for painting her portrait, which he gave Merrik Burrell as a memento. The artist also made a fine sketch of Dreda in terracotta chalk by way of thanking her for sitting to him so that he could complete the portrait [3654]. De László and Sir Merrik became very close as a result of this commission. Lucy, the artist’s wife, wrote to her husband: “The Annie A. picture will always be a bond – such a strange adoration and real devotion in Merrik’s life, which has no doubt left him a changed man as he says himself.”^[8]

After Anny’s death, Sir Merrik had a lock of her hair set under glass in the lid of an antique French box. He wrote an inscription in her memory, which was placed in the box. Sir Merrik found the portrait somewhat too large for his country home, Floodgates, near the family seat, Knepp Castle, in Sussex, but he hung it there and treasured it nonetheless.

Anny Ahlers was born in Hamburg on 22 December 1906, the daughter of Wilhelm Ahlers and Augusta Liebirg. She made her first stage appearance at the age of seven. After the First World War she appeared as a première enfant-danseuse at the Vienna Opera House, and then at the Berlin State Opera House. In 1924 she returned to Hamburg to study operatic singing, and that year made her adult debut at the National Opera House [Volksopernhaus]. Her success continued in Berlin, where she co-starred with Richard Tauber in The Song of Love, and in Vienna.

In 1932 she was brought to London to appear at His Majesty’s Theatre by a wealthy American impresario, Mr Scott, with whom she was much in love. She embodied the character of Jeanne in The Dubarry, but however successful, once in England, apart from presenting her with cheques she hardly knew how to cash, Scott largely ignored her. She found herself alone speaking little English and with no friends or relations. She died in the aforementioned tragic circumstances alone and confused, on 14 March 1933.

Her mother and sister came over from Germany for her funeral and cremation, but only took half her ashes back with them. Some time later the funeral directors contacted the Burrell family; Scott had requested the retention of the rest of the ashes, but had made no further arrangements, practical or financial. Consequently, Sir Merrik had those ashes buried at Shipley, the church close to Knepp Castle. Such was Anny’s popularity that the whole cast and orchestra from The Dubarry came down from London for the service of committal. The great Heddle Nash sang in the church and there was a tremendous gathering at Floodgates afterwards. There are memorials to both Sir Merrik and Miss Ahlers in Shipley Church.

PROVENANCE:

Sir Merrik Burrell, Bart.;

By descent in the family;

Sold by the Christopher Wood Gallery in 2004

EXHIBITED:

•M. Knoedler & Co., London, Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., 21 June-22 July 1933, no. 6

•Victoria Art Galleries, Dundee, Loan Exhibition, Autumn 1934

•Christie’s, King Street, London. A Brush with Grandeur, 2004, no. 123

•Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, Philip de László “I am an artist of the world…”, 2019, no. 16

•Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, 2024, no. 16

LITERATURE:        

•The Sketch, 22 March 1933, p. 499, ill.

•The Daily Mail, 21 June 1933

•Evening Standard, 21 June 1933

•Sunderland Echo, 21 June 1933

•Nottingham Journal, 22 June 1933

•Northern Whig, Belfast, 22 June 1933

•Star, 24 June 1933

•DLA 1934 parcel, Hungarian publication, ill.

•Rutter, Owen. Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 373, ill. opp. p. 384

•Clifford, Derek, The Paintings of P.A. de Laszlo, Literary Services & Production Ltd., London, 1969, monochrome ill. pl. 46

•Sandra de Laszlo ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2004, pp. 26, 60, 188-189

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 236-240, 245, 252, ill. 122

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 158

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 83, ill. pp. 36, 80, 82

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, pp. 49, 79, ill. p.78

•DLA052-0035, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 1 November 1932

•DLA052-0031, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 9 November 1932

•DLA052-0045, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 23 November 1932

•DLA052-0044, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 27 November 1932

•DLA052-0043, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 28 November 1932

•DLA020-0117, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 21 March 1933

•DLA020-0225, letter from de László to Mrs. Richard Hermon (Dreda Burrell’s mother), 22 May 1933

•DLA027-0033, letter from Lucy de László to de László, 26 November 1933

•DLA022-0035, letter from Merrik Burrell to de László, 28 November 1935

CWS & CC 2008