DLA123-0132 Transcription

Dictated

Private

4, CARLTON GARDENS,

PALL MALL,

S.W.1.

Aug: 14th 1917

Dear Mr Laszlo

Thanks very much for your letter. It is a pleasure to think that my portrait for Eton will be done by you.^[1]

When, however,

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I turn to the question of Sittings, I confess myself extremely puzzled. I do not see how it is materially possible, while I hold my present Office, to find ^ [illegible words] time for a sitting, and, as I cannot forsee how long I shall

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remain Foreign Secretary, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to make satisfactory arrangements.^[2] It is just possible that on Saturday morning, when there is, as a rule, no Cabinet, I might arrange to find time: but even [these?] sittings

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can hardly take place till the middle of September, when I shall hope to return from a brief holiday in Scotland, – (my first since I joined Asquith’s^[3] Government in May 1915.) I might then perhaps make arrangements of the kind I have indicated, unless some better plan occurs either to you

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or to me.

Yours sincerely.

Arthur James Balfour

[Recto of envelope]

[in the artist’s hand] Your house any time before that hour. Hoping [illegible] will ^of these [illegible deletion]

Editorial Notes:

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930), British Conservative politician; served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. Balfour sat to de László in 1908 [2705][111255] and again in 1914 [2707]. Two preparatory works for this latter portrait exist, one in pencil [2335] and one in oil [2708].

06/11/2019

[1] “It will interest you to know that I have been ask [sic] to paint Mr. Balfour as a pendant for my Lord Roberts portrait [6924] for the Eton Memorial Hall – to which I look forward very much”, wrote de László to Colonel Knightley Stalker Dunsterville the previous month (see DLA121-0002, letter from de László to Colonel Dunsterville, 25 July 1917). For additional references to this intended portrait for Eton, see DLA116-0009, letter from Sir George Henschel to de László, 22 July 1917; and DLA014-0003, letter from Charles Geoffrey Holme to de László, 10 August 1917. On 4 June 1920, a portrait of Balfour by the Scottish artist (George) Fiddes Watt (1873-1960) was presented to Eton by the Old Etonian Association. The portrait was unveiled by Lord Curzon (see “Eton Revives the Glories of ‘the Fourth’: The Procession of Boats; Mr Balfour’s Portrait”, Illustrated London News, 12 June 1920, p. 21).

[2] In 1916, Balfour became Foreign Secretary in David Lloyd George’s administration. He resigned the position following the Versailles Conference of 1919.

[3] Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852-1928), British Liberal politician; served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916.