12966

Drawing

Mrs Henry Guinness, née Emelina Brown, mother-in-law of the artist 1901

Head-and-shoulders in profile to the left, leaning back against a cushion and wearing wire-frame spectacles

Charcoal on white card, 231.1 x 297.2 cm (9 ⅛ x 11 ⅞ in.)

Indistinctly inscribed lower left: 26 Sept / 091 [sic] / B.H. / L.F.E.   

Private Collection

Emelina Amy Brown (1829-1906) was the daughter of James Brown of Edinburgh, the supposed illegitimate son of David Ogilvy, 5th Earl of Airlie. She married Henry Guinness in 1858 and together they had twelve children.

Her husband died in December 1893, just under two years after their daughter Lucy had fallen in love with the young de László. His widow described herself as being in ‘lack misery’ after her husband’s death and their declared opposition to the match was continued by Mrs Guinness for some five more years until de László had proved himself worthy of her daughter by his constancy and his artistic successes.

In the inscription in the lower left part of the drawing, B.H. refers to Burton Hall, the family home. L.F.E. are the artist’s initials in the Hungarian manner of writing a name: László Fülöp Elek. As for the date, de László was notoriously imprecise in his writing. Stylistically and historically, the most likely date for this drawing is 1901, the year after Lucy and he were married. Thus it would seem he has used the Hungarian tradition of writing the date without the millennium digit and reversed the numbers 0 and 9.

Twenty-five years later, de László made a similar caricature drawing of Lucy [11697] and established a parallel between her and her mother, referring to the present work, which would have been in their possession at the time.  

There exists a photogravure of the present drawing, which remains in the collection of a descendant of the artist.

EXHIBITED:

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur, 6-22 January 2004, no. 25

LITERATURE:        

•De Laszlo, Sandra, & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2004, pp. 88-9, ill. p. 88

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 78, ill.

CWS 2008