3159

War Picture

Lady Forres, née the Honourable Agnes Freda Herschell c. 1922

Standing full-length beside a column, in a darkened church interior, wearing full mourning dress with a headdress, beside her a votive candle stand and a lighted candle held before her in both hands

Oil on canvas, 75.6 x 59.4 cm (29 ¾ x 23 ⅜ in.)

Studio Inventory, p. 9 (53): Freda, Lady Forres (A study for the War Picture). The War Picture for which there are many studies was never carried out

Private Collection

De László had planned to paint a picture for his own pleasure of a subject in connection with the First World War.  He wished to depict: “not men fighting, but the still nobler part of suffering women at home; women of all classes in a chapel surrounding the burning candles for the fallen souls.”^[1] The painting was never started although many studies and sketches remained in his studio on his death, of which this is a fine example.

De László also painted study portraits of the sitter [3153] and her husband, the 1st Baron Forres in 1922 [3157]. He had previously painted an unfinished study [3154] and a formal portrait of the sitter’s daughter-in-law, The Hon. Mrs. Kenneth Williamson, née Jessica Harford, in 1920 [4660], as well as a head-only study [5612]. In 1929 de László went on to paint a full-length portrait of the 1st Baron Forres wearing his peer’s robes, which is in another private collection [5615]. The present picture would therefore have been painted in about 1922. It was de László’s custom to invite current sitters, their relatives or even ladies he met at parties to act as models for his War Picture studies.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [3153].

PROVENANCE:          

In the possession of the artist on his death

LITERATURE:          

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 372-373

CWS 2008