8675

Study portrait with later additions by another hand

Paul Leonardo de Laszlo 1931

Half-length to the left, seated at a table, reading a brief, wearing barrister's wig and gown, a window indicated in the left background

Oil on canvas, 83.9 x 64.8 cm (33 ¼ x 25 ½ in.)

Indistinctly inscribed lower left in another hand:  P [...] DE LASZLO

Inscribed lower right: "THE BRIEF" [pencil]  

Studio Inventory, p. 8 (48) Paul de Laszlo, head and shoulders in wig and gown (under life size). Sketch

Private Collection

A photograph in the de Laszlo Archive shows that this portrait was originally left unfinished without hands. These were added by a previous owner sometime after 1991.  

De László was extremely proud when his son Paul was called to the bar in 1929 and painted a number of portraits of him in his wig and gown. This portrait is recorded in the artist’s diary 11 April 1931, “During the morning Pauli came started a small pic. of him in wig & gown reading in the small dressing room of the studio – nearly profil[e]. The full light on his fine nose.”^[1] The sitter joined solicitors Gregory Rowcliffe & Co. in London, who would later act as executors of Philip de László’s estate after his death in 1937.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [13214].

PROVENANCE:  

In the possession of the artist on his death;

By descent in the family;

Sold Christie’s, South Kensington, 4 November 1998[17]

LITERATURE:

•Owen Rutter, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 371

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection

KF 2012