111918

UNTRACED

Miriam Louisa Rothschild c. 1912

[Medium, support and measurements unknown]

De László painted many members of the Rothschild family, including the sitter’s mother, Rozsika Rothschild [10016] in 1914. Correspondence between the artist and Rozsika gives us some idea of the composition of the portrait of Miriam, which highlights the child’s early interest in the natural world, “I received your letter with great pleasure and I hasten to let you know that I am entirely in agreement with your conception of my little daughter’s portrait, the more so because she is so fond of flowers that during the summer she always falls asleep with a flower in her hand! I hear that she was very “shy” (sic) on Thursday, but I am sure that when she goes out to Tring to you on Thursday she will be better behaved.^[1] The intention was that the portrait would be similar to that of an unknown portrait of an unidentified sitter, “I shall not give up until I have enticed you here in order to paint Miriam – a sketch only, like the younger Archduchess, and I am sure now that she will not be unruly. It may just be maternal prejudice, but the child is so pretty and she has so much charm, that it would be a crying shame if she were not painted at this age.”^[2] 

Miriam Louisa Rothschild was born 5 August 1908, at Ashton Wold, Northampton, the daughter of Nathaniel Charles Rothschild and his wife Rozsika von Wertheimstein. She did not receive any formal education as a child, but was taught natural history by her father and uncle, Lionel Walter Rothschild. Miriam's father collected and described about 500 new species of fleas, and her uncle had built a private natural history museum at Tring.^[3] From the age of 17 she requested that she might go to school and attended evening classes in zoology at Chelsea College of Science and Technology.

During the Second World War, Miriam worked at Bletchley Park, the center for code-breaking, and the Foreign Office, being awarded the Defense Medal in 1945. She met her husband Captain George Lane, MC (a Hungarian who had changed his name from Lanyi), while Ashton Wold was used as a hospital for wounded servicemen. They married in 1943 and had four surviving children, Mary Rozsika (born 1945), Charles Daniel (born 1948), Charlotte Theresa (born 1951) and Johanna Miriam (born 1951). The marriage was dissolved in 1957 but Miriam later recalled that it was very much a love affair.

The sitter was passionate about conservation in the UK, particularly of wild flowers and butterflies, “Nobody has really thought about what is so satisfying in nature, but people really do benefit from contact with plants, animals, birds and butterflies. Without them we are a deprived species.”^[4] She disapproved of the way animals were slaughtered for food in the UK and refused to eat meat or wear leather shoes. She always wore white Wellington boots in summer, including to Prince Charles’ 40th birthday ball at Buckingham Palace. The Prince was a great admirer of her gardens of wildflowers and she advised him on plants for his gardens at Highgrove House.

Miriam was a prolific author, publishing over 350 papers on entomology, zoology and other subjects and was editor of Novitates Zoologica between 1938 and 1941. Her scholarship was widely recognised and she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1985. She received honorary doctorates from eight universities, including Oxford and Cambridge and in 1982 was invested as a Commander, Order of the British Empire, and as a Dame Commander in 2000.

Miriam Rothschild died on 20 January 2005, aged ninety-six.

LITERATURE:

•DLA068-0026, letter from Rozsika Rothschild to de László, not dated

•DLA068-0032, letter from Rozsika Rothschild to de László, 1 July (not dated)

KF 2013