3056

Study portrait

Mrs Henry Samuel Howard Guinness, née Alfhild Holter 1913

Head and shoulders to the left, wearing a white chiffon blouse with a low neckline, a gold necklace with a pearl and gold pendant and drop pearl earrings

Oil on board, 87 x 69.3 cm (34 ¼ x 27 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower right: To Alfhild / from her Unkel [sic] / P.A. de László / London / 1913 XI 

Laib L6808(55) / C11(11)  

NPG Album 1913-15, p. 42b, where labelled: Mrs. Sam. Guinness

Private Collection

This portrait was painted as a wedding present for the sitter on her marriage to Lucy de László’s nephew, Henry Samuel Howard Guinness (1888-1975), son of her third elder brother Howard [5494]. De László also painted two of the sitter’s children, Helga, in 1922 [3065], and again in 1934 on her marriage [3063], and George in 1922 [3061]. Her sister Hjördis Holter [4794] was painted in 1917. One of de László’s authorised copyists, Frederick Cullen, was commissioned to paint a copy of this portrait which is in the collection of a descendant of the artist.

Alfhild Holter was born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, in 1890, the second daughter of the diplomat Otto Christian Holter (1859-1921), Consul-General in Oslo, and his wife Helga Sommerfeldt. At the age of seventeen she met Sam Guinness, a 19-year-old undergraduate at Balliol College, at a tea party in Oxford. They fell in love but had to wait some four years before they were allowed to marry as his parents wished him to become self-supporting. The marriage took place 8 October 1913.

Alfhild was a professionally trained soprano and sang duets with de László in Hungarian. There was a particular bond between them as foreigners married into the Guinness family and he admired her ash-blond hair and exceptionally fair Scandinavian colouring. She and Sam were much loved by the de László family and included in all their special family occasions.

Sam was a Partner at Guinness Mahon & Co., Merchant Bankers 1923-71, and Senior Partner 1937-68. They lived nearly all their married life in Chelsea, first in Tite Street and then for 55 years at No. 6 Cheyne Walk. There were four children of the marriage: George (born 1915), Helga (born 1916); Marit (born 1919) and Ingrid (born 1922).

Alfhild was a founding member of the Chelsea Society and served as Chairman of the Ladies Association of the Victoria Hospital for Children. She gave concerts and hosted parties at her homes to raise funds for both charities She and her husband served as air raid wardens during the war and Alfhild also worked for the Norwegian Red Cross. She travelled throughout the country visiting prisons and other organisations, looking after the welfare of Norwegian refugees. Her husband gave assistance to the Norwegian Government in exile. In 1947 both Alfhild and Sam were created Chevalier Order of St Olav, Norway’s highest honour.

During and after the war she kept chickens and a noisy cockerel in her London garden. She was a first-class fisherwoman and skier and loved to travel. She sang as a soprano in Vaughan Williams’ Bach Choir. She took up oil painting in her later middle years, showing several times at the Paris Salon and was awarded a medal. On one occasion she exhibited with work by her daughter, Marit, whose desire to be an artist was encouraged by de László,^[1] and her granddaughter, Juliet, the first time in the history of the Salon that three generations of the same family were included in one exhibition.  

She died in January 1983 aged 92.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family        

LITERATURE:

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 227, ill.

KF 2021