6436

Mrs Thomas Arthur Nelson, née Margaret Balfour 1917

Half-length to the left, head turned slightly and looking right, wearing a fur-trimmed turquoise brocade stole, a black choker, drop pearl earrings and a clasp at her breast, to which her left hand is raised

Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 69.9 cm (35 ½ x 27 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: László / LONDON / 1917. III.

Laib L8406(428) / C20(17) Mrs. Nelson

NPG Album 1917-21, p. 35

Sitters’ Book II, f. 9: Margaret Nelson March 5th 1917

Private Collection

In 1916 de László painted Margaret Nelson’s husband, Captain Thomas Arthur Nelson [6433] and brother-in-law Captain Ian Theodore Nelson [6437], both in service dress. Captain Nelson was killed serving in France only six months later, a month after the present portrait was completed. The artist also painted the sitter’s brother Frederick Balfour [3547], his wife [2139] and children Alastair [3551] and Jean [3554] [3558].

Margaret Balfour was born 12 December 1881, in Mount Alyn, Co. Denbigh, the third daughter of Alexander Balfour (1824-1886) and his wife Janet Roxburgh (1844-1923). On 18 June 1903 she married Captain Thomas Arthur Nelson of St Leonards and Achnacloich, son of Thomas Nelson and his wife Janet Kemp. There were six children of the marriage: Thomas (born 1904); Alexander (born 1906); (Christian Margaret) Kirsty, born in 1905; Esther (born 1910); Elisabeth (born  1912) and Bridget (born 1914).  

Captain Nelson was killed in 1917 and at the end of the war Margaret was visited by his friend the artist Paul Lucien Maze (1887-1979). Maze had promised Nelson that he would visit his wife in the event of his death. Margaret and three of her children followed Maze to Paris and they were married in January 1920 on her family’s Scottish estate at Achnacloich. There were two children of the marriage: Pauline (born 1920) and Étienne (born 1922). The sitter’s new husband struggled to find inspiration in Scotland and they moved to 14 Chelsea Embankment, London. They engaged a young redheaded Scottish girl called Jessie Lawrie as a nanny to look after the eight children in their London home. Jessie became Maze’s model and then his mistress. Maze eventually went to live with her and they married in 1950.  

Despite the breakdown of their marriage, Margaret and Paul Maze remained friends. She was described by her family as generous and self-sacrificing, eager to appreciate every experience that came her way.^[1]

The sitter died in June 1967 at Biddesden House, Wiltshire, the home of her daughter Elisabeth, who married, as his second wife, Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family of the sitter

KF 2021