111037

DESTROYED

Colonel Knightley Stalker Dunsterville 1916

Head and shoulders, slightly to the right, but looking full-face to the viewer, in service dress with a shirt and tie

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower right: László / 1916 may 30 / LONDON

Laib L8683 (678) / C7 (22)

NPG Album 1917-1921, p. 39

Sitters’ Book II, f. 7: Knightley S. Dunsterville / 29th August 1916

De László was asked to paint the present portrait as a pendant to the portrait of the sitter’s son, Knightley Fletcher Dunsterville, executed in 1914 [111043]. Ada Marion Dunsterville commissioned the present portrait in a letter dated 22 January 1916,^[1] and it was later decided that the portrait should be painted in May.^[2] However, de László being particularly busy, the sittings eventually took place on 28, 29, 30, and 31 August 1916. A very short while after the completion of the present portrait, the sitter’s wife commissioned de László to paint her too, with the intention of having her portrait [1938] hung between those of her son and of her husband. The three family portraits were unfortunately destroyed during the Second World War in a direct hit on the Harrods’ Depositary, London, where they had been placed for safe keeping.

Colonel Knightley Stalker Dunsterville was born in India on 25 January 1857, the middle of the three sons of Colonel James Barnes Dunsterville (1821-1870) and his wife, née Harriet Birch (1831-1892), who also had four daughters. The sitter was educated at the Royal Military College, Woolwich. He was awarded his commission, joined the Royal Artillery, and seconded to the Indian Army. He served in India and Bengal, then returned to the war office during the First World War, and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (military) for his exceptional service. In 1882, he married in India Ada Marion Fletcher (died 1929), with whom he had two children: Knightley Fletcher (born 1883), and Graham Eardley (born 1884), who was killed in 1914, in the first month of the Great War. The sitter died on 8 January 1935 at Bexhill, Sussex.

PROVENANCE:        

The sitter’s son, Knightley Fletcher Dunsterville;

Destroyed as a result of enemy action while stored at the Harrods’ Depository, Barnes, 1942

LITERATURE:        

•DLA044-0095, letter from Ada Marion Dunsterville to de László, 22 January 1916

•DLA044-0094, letter from Ada Marion Dunsterville to de László, 25 March 1916

CC 2008