1954

Countess Anastasia de Torby 1917

Half-length to the right with her hands raised to the blue stole around her shoulders, wearing a décolleté pale yellow dress and a cabochon sapphire engagement ring

Oil on canvas, 99.1 x 75 cm (39 x 29 ½ in.)

Inscirbed lower right: de László / 1917 - VII 

Laib L6690(752) / C26(6) Countess Torby

NPG Album 1917-21, p. 46

Sitters’ Book II, f. 10: Zia de Torby. July. 10th 1917.

Private Collection

A letter from Lady Wernher to de László suggests this portrait was conceived between her and Countess Anastasia as a surprise wedding gift at the time of the sitter’s marriage to her son. Together they viewed the artist’s work exhibited at the Grosvenor Galleries to select a style of portrait: “Countess Zia & I have been to the Grosvenor Galleries. We like Lady Rose Leveson-Gower’s [5325] portrait immensely & of course Mrs Arthur Wilson’s [7032], Lady Curzon of Kedleston’s [3046] & your man’s portrait are beautiful. But I think Lady Rose’s would be the one to take as a model more or less for Countess Zia’s, only, of course, you would suit the colouring to her own! - Don’t forget it is an absolute secret & to be a surprise for my son. We are telling no one! My son would not like Ctss Zia in a hat we both know. She will come in the mornings & begin on 9th July. She hopes you can finish in 3 or 4 sittings as she will be so rushed that week - The wedding will be the following one so you will understand!”^[1] 

De László was commissioned by the sitter’s father to paint a three-quarter length portrait of Countess Zia in 1913 [12637] and a half-length oil [12640] painted at the same time was presented to the sitter by the artist on the occasion of her marriage. A miniature replica of the present portrait remains in the family.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [12637].

EXHIBITED:

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June, 1924, no. 11

•M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1925

•The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Special Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., 5-27 December 1925, no. 22

•The Baltimore Museum of Art, Special Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., 31 December 1925-10 January 1926, no. 20

LITERATURE:

•“Society Women Seen by a Great Painter: de Laszlo Portraits,” The Illustrated London News, 5 July  1924, p. 20, ill.

•“Faces,” Time Magazine, 18 August 1924

•DLA049-0021, letter from Lady Wernher to de László, 25 June 1917

KF 2022