9944

Mrs William Wickham Hoffman, née Katherine Miller 1932

Half-length to the left, head turned full face to the viewer, her right hand holding a gold edge stole draped round her shoulders over a white camisole or evening gown, an amber necklace and a gold laurel wreath in her hair

Oil on board, 90.8 x 70.5 cm (35 ¾ x 27 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1932 May LONDON

Laib L17399(484) / C12(31): Mrs. Hoffman

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 73: Katherine W. Hoffman - May 11th 1932 -

New Place Hotel, Southampton

This portrait was painted in London in 1932. During his fifth and last visit to the United States, from late 1933 to early 1934, de László recorded in his diary that he dined with the sitter and her husband and saw the portrait in their home. He also mentioned that he “corrected Mrs. Hoffman’s portrait,” something he rarely did once he had completed and signed a portrait.^[1]

The gold laurel wreath was a studio prop used periodically by de László, most notably for the portrait of the Duchess of Portland in 1912 [4417] and much later for the last portrait he painted of his wife Lucy, in 1936 [7466].

Katherine Chace Miller was born 7 March 1894, the daughter of Dr George Norton Miller (1857-1935) and Martha Le Roy Glover (1864-1941). Her parents were collectors of art and acquired works by many significant American artists, including as Childe Hassam. Their city residence at 811 Madison Avenue, New York city, and their country estate in Rhinebeck, New York held ancestral family portraits painted by Thomas Sully and Gilbert Stuart. After the death of her brother, US Army Lieutenant George Norton Miller III, during the First World War, she joined the American Red Cross as a nurse and was stationed in Southampton, England.

On 6 March 1922 she married William Wickham Hoffman (1880-1966), son of Mr and Mrs Francis Burrall Hoffman. He had served as a major in the artillery and was posted as a military attaché at the American legation in Brussels after the war. He accompanied King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians as their American aide on their official visit to the United States in 1919 and during his honeymoon in Europe he and his wife were presented to the King and Queen in Brussels. After their return to live in the United States they settled at 24 E. 95th St., New York, the house a wedding gift from her parents.^[2] Mr Hoffman served as a vice president and trust officer of the National City Bank of New York (later First National City Bank). They also maintained residences on Fifth Avenue, at “Wiltwick,” in Jericho, Long Island, and in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Katharine Hoffman was an amateur artist and painted throughout her life, primarily landscapes and interiors of her homes. During her travels to Europe she acquired works of art and built a small but important collection of French Impressionists and American Realist painters, particularly George Bellows.

She was widowed in 1966 and devoted herself to philanthropy until her death in 1977 at her Carlyle House residence.

PROVENANCE:

Sold Christie’s King St, 11 July 2019, lot 104

LITERATURE:

•László, Philip de, 1933-1934 diary, private collection

MD & KF 2019