6801

Lieutenant Colonel Charles à Court Repington 1920

Head and shoulders slightly to the left, full-face looking towards the viewer, wearing a brown suit, white shirt and dark tie, all against a dark background

Oil on panel, 47.5 x 40.5 cm (18 ¾ x 16 in.)

Inscribed lower right: PA de László / 1920. Easter

Laib L9595 (140) / C23 (34): Colonel Rapington [sic]

NPG Album 1917-1921, p. 17

Private Collection

Colonel Repington commissioned this portrait as a frontispiece for the publication of his diaries, The First World War, 1914-1918. He wrote to de László: “I … want to know whether you can do a small sketch of me for reproduction as the frontispiece of my volumes on the war which are to appear in May or June. You will be able to judge what is the best medium for a reproduction, whether black and white or what. Can I come to you any morning next week, as early as you like? ”^[1] 

The inscription on Repington’s portrait confirms that the sittings took place at Easter 1919. It was not completed in time to be reproduced in the original edition of Repington’s diary and the sitter wrote enquiring: “When can I hope for the portrait, and when will the 6 photos come, for the Yankees are howling for them.”^[2]

Colonel Repington had been an enthusiast of de László’s work since his first visit to the studio in 1915 to see the portrait of Mrs Leeds [6021] (later Princess Christopher of Greece), and his wartime diaries are full of references to works by de László which he admired. Among these were those of Muriel Thetis Wilson [7759][10077]. In December 1919 he commissioned a portrait of his close friend Evelyn, Lady Downshire [4911].

Charles à Court Repington was born on 29 January 1858, the son of Emily Currie and Charles Henry Wyndham à Court, who later assumed the additional name of Repington. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he entered the Rifle Brigade in 1878. After serving in Afghanistan, Burma, the Sudan and in South Africa, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1898. From 1899 until 1902 he was Military Attaché to Brussels and The Hague. However, due to the scandal of his conducting an affair with the wife of a fellow officer in 1902, Repington had to resign his commission, and subsequently became a well known military correspondent for The Times during the First World War, before his defection to The Morning Post in 1918, and later to the Daily Telegraph.

A keen art collector, Repington counted several artists amongst his friends and encouraged William Rothenstein's idea of appointing an official war artist during the great war. He had a deserved reputation with the ladies as a beau sabreur and was admired by a host of fashionable beauties. In 1882 he married Mellony Katherine Scobell, with whom he had two daughters. The sitter died on 25 May 1925 in some considerable debt, occasioning the sale of all his possessions, together with his, by then considerable, art collection.

PROVENANCE:         

Sold in the sale of the sitter's effects, 1925

Sold Bonham’s, London, 11 July 2006, lot 18

EXHIBITED:        

•The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, Paintings by Philip A. de László, 26 February-20 March, 1921, no. 16

•M. Knoedler and Co., New York. Paintings by Philip A. de László, 4-16 April 1921, no. 26

LITERATURE:        

•Repington, Colonel, The First World War 1914-1918, two volumes, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 1920

•The Tatler, no. 1004, 22 September 1920, p. 388

•Town and Country, 1 March 1921, p. 23, ill.

•The Washington Post, 13 March 1921, p. 7

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1939, p. 344

•DLA048-0032, letter from Repington to de László, 8 April 1920

•DLA048-0031, letter from Repington to de László, 26 April 1920

With our grateful thanks to Professor Anthony Morris for his help in compiling this biography

CC 2008