110787

Mrs Christiaan Beels, née Anna Louise van Eeghen 1913

Half-length slightly to the left, full-face and looking to the viewer, wearing a black evening dress with a wide embroidered silk collar, a black chiffon stole around her shoulders, and a pearl choker, holding a fan with both hands, a curtain or drape just visible to the left

Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 75 cm (39 ½ x 30 in.)

Inscribed upper left: P.A. de László. / LONDON / 1913

Laib L6612 (783) / C2 (27A)

NPG Album 1903-1914, p. 25

NPG Album, 1907-1913, p.18 where labelled by the artist: Dutch Lady

Private Collection

In May 1912 Anna Louise Beels from Amsterdam wrote to de László to arrange a sitting for a portrait. This was to be a present for her husband Christiaan Beels, a member of the banking firm of Beels & Co., to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. It was, however, some time before they were able to fix a mutually convenient date to commence the portrait. In October, de László sent Louise a copy of the Pall Mall Magazine containing a number of illustrations of his works. Louise wrote back: “We…enjoyed reading in the Pall Mall Magazine all there is written about you and your sympathetic way of reproducing your subjects by understanding their character. I only fear I am not a worthy person enough to be painted by you, but it is such a great wish of my husband, as since many years already he admired your way of painting and he will be so pleased if this wish can be fulfilled!”^[1] Delays occurred on both sides: de László broke his ankle in Switzerland and Louise’s mother-in-law died suddenly, so painting could not begin until 18 April 1913. Louise travelled to London without her husband and the portrait was a great surprise for him when it arrived in Amsterdam a month later. Louise wrote immediately to de László describing her husband’s delight and exclamation: “To think we have a de László in our house is almost too good to be true!”^[2] 

Two days later de László received an ecstatic letter from Christiaan Beels himself: “[The portrait] is a real masterpiece and makes me the proudest man of Amsterdam now it is my own … I admire (as I have done these last 15 years) the way you paint, but I could not expect that you would be able to give me such a living portrait of her who has been part of my life for twenty five years. The kind and loving expression of her eyes, mouth, whole face is so true and real that I am more than enchanted with it. Also the hands which I am so glad to see on the painting and had no right to expect^[3], I hear they are a kind personal present of yours, are beautifully real and natural….The only disagreement you may have of this work of yours may be that every husband in Amsterdam will wish to have his wife painted by you, but you could never have the same success as here as Amsterdam does not possess a Second Mrs Beels.”^[4] According the artist’s wife’s diary, de László was paid £400 for painting this portrait.^[5]

Anna Louise Beels (1862-1937) was born in Driebergen and was the ninth child of Jan van Eeghen and Henriette Louise Labouchère. Very gifted in art and music, she played the piano and made drawings and watercolours. On 18 September 1888 she married, at Doorn, Christiaan Beels (1862-1931). The couple had five children and lived, from 1901, in the Van Eeghenstraat in Amsterdam.

Louise’s brother Samuel Pieter van Eeghen (1853-1934), a banker, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, and husband of Olga, sister of Louis van Loon [7442], was a member of the honours committee of the ‘International Exhibition of Art Works by Living Masters’ at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, together with Jacob Theodoor Cremer [10779] and Barthold van Riemsdijk [111222]. In 1912 the committee awarded de László the Diplôme d’Honneur for the work he exhibited.

The portrait of Mrs Beels was the last of de László’s Dutch commissions before the outbreak of war. He returned to Amsterdam in 1920 to carry out several more.

EXHIBTED:          

•Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, De László in Holland, Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), 3 March-5 June 2006, n° 27

LITERATURE:         

•Grever, Tonko and Annemieke Heuft (Sandra de Laszlo, British ed.). De László in Holland: Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2006, pp. 58, 60, 61, 70, ill. n° 27

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 231

•DLA053-0107, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 28 April 1912

•DLA053-0111, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 22 May 1912

•DLA053-0118, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 18 October 1912

•DLA053-0116, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 25 October 1912

•DLA053-0110, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 8 January 1913

•DLA053-0115, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 22 January 1913

•DLA054-0128, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 8 March 1913

•DLA053-0109, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 1 April 1913

•DLA053-0113, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 8 April 1913

•DLA053-0112, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 22 May 1913

•DLA053-0108, letter from Christiaan Beels to de László, 24 May 1913

•DLA053-0114, letter from Louise Beels to de László, 24 June 1913

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection, p. 149^[6]

CWS 2006