8153

Study portrait

Mrs Philip de László, née Lucy Madeleine Guinness 1901

Head and shoulders in profile to the right, wearing a straw hat with a large blue ribbon tied around it

Oil on board, 48 x 61 cm (24 x 19 in.)

Inscribed lower right: To Connely / from Phillip [sic] / 1901 / Burton Hall   [pencil]

Private Collection

This is a personal, intimate study of Lucy de László. It was painted at her family home, Burton Hall, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin, the year that followed her wedding to the artist on 7 June 1900 at Stillorgan Church. The couple subsequently settled in Budapest, but this portrait was executed during a visit to Ireland to introduce their first son, Henry, born in June 1901. Early in their marriage, de László made a couple of  romantic oil studies of Lucy en plein air, wearing a straw hat [10623] & [11064], a series that culminated in 1902 with a formal three-quarter length portrait of Lucy holding her violin [11474], in the collection of the Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin.

The portrait is dedicated to ‘Connely,’the nickname of Lucy’s younger sister, Constance, to whom she was very close. Lucy was the eleventh child of her parents, and Constance the twelfth and youngest; she married Captain Ernest Craig-Brown of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in 1903.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [11474].

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family;
Sold at auction at Christie’s King Street, 15 December 2010, lot 151

CC 2008