4609

Baroness Leo d'Erlanger, née Edwina Louise Prue 1935

Seated full-length on a French settee facing the viewer wearing a long-sleeved full-length gown with a necklace and a golden belt, her right arm resting on the arm of the settee, her left on the cushion beside her; a large oriental vase containing two lilies behind on the right

Oil on canvas, 127 x 94 cm (50 x 37 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1935 IV.   

Laib L19468 (606) / C8 (13)  

NPG 1935 Album, p. 179

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 81: Edwina d’Erlanger January 21st 1935 

Private Collection

In 1932, de László had abandoned two canvases depicting the sitter wearing a white evening dress and golden laurel wreath [4605] & [4606], and it seems that the artist finally completed this portrait commission in 1935 with this entirely new composition. Even then, another contretemps challenged its completion, as de László had double-booked himself on 28 January, when the first sitting was due to take place. This was postponed until Friday 1st February 1935^[1] and seven weeks went by before artist and sitter met again. According to correspondence from de László’s secretary, it seems that most of the sittings – six of them – took place between 23 and 29 March 1935. The artist’s honorarium for this portrait was £1050 pounds.^[2]

De László made two preparatory pencil drawings for the present portrait [4611] & [4613] – both of which remained in a sketchbook in his studio on his death. Being an important commission, he also made a preparatory oil sketch which is now in the collection of a descendant of the artist [7501]. It appears from these preparatory works that de László originally intended to emphasise Baroness Leo d’Erlanger’s fine legs.  However, here in the finished portrait, they are subtlety suggested under the soft gown, the focus of the painting being on her bare left shoulder. The sitter, in her somewhat provocative pose, holds the gaze of the viewer as she does in the preparatory drawings. Clearly de László had a strong vision of the sensual mood of this painting from the outset of his final preparations for this successful last portrait of the Baroness. Two entries in the artist’s diary indicate that he was indeed satisfied with the completed work.^[3]

Baroness Leo d’Erlanger, née Edwina Louise Prue, was born in New York in 1906 and brought up on a ranch in New Mexico. In the 1920s, Leo d’Erlanger saw her at a London railroad station and instantly fell in love with her. He somehow traced her to the United States, and he eventually married her in 1930. Together they had a son, Rodolphe, and a daughter, Tess. The sitter lived in London and Geneva, and also in Tunisia, just outside Sid-bou-Said, in the palace built by her father-in-law, which he called Ennejma Ezzahra (Star of Venus). She died in Geneva in August 1994.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the sitter’s family

LITERATURE:        

•DLA067-0071, letter from de László to Baroness Leo d’Erlanger, 29 January 1935

•DLA067-0070, letter from de László’s secretary to Baroness Leo d’Erlanger, 1 March 1935

•DLA067-0067, receipt, 27 June 1935

•László, Philip de, January-June 1935 diary, private collection, 21 January entry, p. 7; 25 January entry, p. 10; 1 February entry, p. 17; 2 February entry, p. 17; 3 February entry, p. 18; 23 March entry, p. 77; 25 March entry, p. 77; 26 March entry, p. 78; 27 March entry, p. 78; 29 March entry, p. 79; 30 March entry, p. 79; 4 April entry, p. 80; 5 April entry, p. 80; 6 April entry, pp. 81-82; 8 April entry, p. 82

•László, Philip de, 1935 diary, private collection, 23 March entry, p.77

•László, Lucy de, 1935 diary, private collection, 10 April entry, p. 24

CC 2008