9975

Mrs Christopher Leyland, née Sylvia Evelyn Cotterell 1924

Half-length, slightly to the right, head turned in three-quarter profile to the left, an embroidered red wrap round her shoulders over a chiffon stole, her left arm and hand across her breast

Oil on canvas, 95.3 x 69.9 cm (37 ½ x 27 ½ in.) oval

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1924

Laib L11355(451) / C15(25): Mrs. Leylands [sic]

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 39: Sylvia / Leyland [among signatures dated 20 January and 18 February 1924]

Private Collection

De László painted the sitter’s mother in 1913 [4185], the sitter’s brother [4187] and sister-in-law [4189] in 1931 and her father, Sir John Cotterell, in 1934 [4183].

The artist’s honorarium for the portrait was 300 guineas^[1] and the frame was provided by Frederick Charles Buck (1850-1929) of 21 Baker Street.^[2] The sitter made fun of herself in a letter written after the portrait was completed, signing it, ‘The Lazy Sitter,’ and saying that she hoped to visit the studio while he was painting the children [6857] of her aunt Helen, Duchess of Northumberland [6841] where she expected “an edifying spectacle of ‘how to sit’ as against my own ‘how not to’!”^[3]

The sitter’s husband wrote to de László after the portrait had been delivered to their home, Haggerston Castle, Northumberland: “the picture of my wife arrived safely yesterday. I am more than delighted with it & think it is a really charming picture. It is a great pity my wife does not always do her hair like in the picture as it is such an improvement but hope in time I may induce her to do so.” De László agreed with him, writing “Mrs. Leyland should certainly arrange her hair in the way it was arranged for the picture, as her head is the right shape and the dignity of a classic statue. It is pleasing to the eye to see in its full splendour her beautiful blonde hair.”^[4]

Sylvia Evelyn Cotterell was born 14 November 1896, the eldest daughter of Sir John Richard Geers Cotterell, 4th Baronet (1866-1937) and his wife, Lady Evelyn Gordon-Lennox (1872-1922). On 16 November 1916 she married Christopher Digby Leyland (1892-1971), of Haggerston Castle, Beal, Northumberland. There were three children of the marriage: Pamela (born 1917), Annie (born 1919) and John (born 1922). The marriage ended in divorce in 1929 and on 2 November that year she married Rowland Norris Fawcett (1901-1933), son of Colonel Fawcett  of Scaleby Castle in Cumberland. Fawcett, a professional National Hunt jockey, was badly injured at Folkestone in 1929 when his horse Montodor bolted and smashed through the rails. On the evening of 1 December 1933 he was killed instantly as his car hit a tree near the Watford Gap as he returned home to Bohemia House, Blewbury in Berkshire from racing at Haydock Park.

Sylvia died 4 February 1944, aged only 47.

EXHIBITED:

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1924, no. 18

LITERATURE:

•DLA075-0105, letter from Christopher Leyland to de László, 16 March 1924

•DLA075-0104, letter from de László’s secretary to Christopher Leyland, 18 March 1924

•DLA075-0108, letter from Mrs Christopher Leyland to de László, 19 March 1924

•DLA075-0106, letter from de László to Christopher Leyland, 19 March 1924

•DLA075-0107, letter from Christopher Leyland to de László, 26 March 1924

•DLA075-0101, letter from Christopher Leyland to de László’s secretary, 26 March 1924

•DLA107-0269, letter from de László to Christopher Leyland, 25 May 1924

•DLA094-0054, press cutting, “The De Laszlo Exhibition,” Morning Post, 25 June 1924

MD & KF 2020