6784

Lady Wernher, née Alice Sedgwick Mankiewicz 1916

Standing, three-quarter length in an ivory evening dress and blue-grey edged chiffon cape, her right hand resting on the back of an upholstered armchair on which a Pekingese dog is sitting

Oil on canvas, 102 x 161cm (63 ⅓ x 40 in.)

Inscribed upper left: László / 1916 LONDON 

Laib L9932(785) / C28(32)  

NPG Album 1912-16, p. 44: Lady Wernher / 1916.

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 5: Alice S. Wernher June 2d 1916.

Private Collection

The present portrait was completed just before Lady Wernher’s youngest son Alexander was killed in action in France on 10 September 1916. She wrote to the artist in January 1917, possibly referring to another of her sons serving in the First World War: “I have been wishing to write to you ever since I returned with my poor invalid boy, but I waited thinking you might like to hear some of the opinion on your portrait of me. Alas ! hardly anyone has seen it owing to my anxiety about my son & that I have not been able to hang it yet! However I cannot delay any longer to thank you for producing such a beautiful picture & for all the trouble & pains you took. Just a very few, who know me intimately have seen it & their opinion is what I expected - that it is a wonderful picture & the only portrait of me they like. I feel that as a painting it will live long after the sitter is forgotten. Perhaps I can better appreciate than any one, the difficulties of your task, so wonderfully overcome by your genius. It will always be a pleasure to me to look at your portrait of me & I am truly glad & grateful to possess so fine a painting.”^[1] 

A Pekingese dog appears in a number of the artist’s portraits including those of Lady Sandys, Diana and Godfrey Ralli [2681], Mrs Frederick Pratt [111664] and Lucy de László [11750][8180] and Ronald and David Nall-Cain [2621]. It was de László’s favourite breed of dog and he owned several of his own. Pekingese were still rare in England at the time this portrait was painted, having first arrived in England in about 1870 when two were presented to Queen Victoria.^[2] The granddaughter of the sitter recalled that Lady Wernher’s secretary Miss Price owned a Pekingese dog but, as the present portrait was painted in the artist’s London studio, it is possible that he has painted his own pet Yang.

De László painted another three-quarter length of the sitter in 1924 [6780] after her marriage to Lord Ludlow. Two preparatory oil studies are known, one in a private collection [6102] and a second [112535] destroyed in accordance with the terms of the artist’s will. A study portrait [6780] was completed in 1925. De László also painted Lady Wernher's daughter-in-law, née Countess Zia de Torby, in 1913 [12637] and 1917 [1954], the latter a marriage present commissioned by Lady Wernher as a wedding gift for her marriage to her son.

Alice Sedgwick Mankiewicz was born in 1865, the daughter of James Mankiewicz (1830–1879) and his wife Ada Susan Pigott. On 12 June 1888 she married Sir Julius Charles Wernher, 1st Bt (1850-1912) who made a fortune from diamond mining in South Africa. There were three sons of the marriage: Derek Julius (born 1899), who succeeded his father as 2nd Bt in 1912, Harold Augustus (born 1893) and Alexander Pigott (born 1897). They resided at Bath House, Piccadilly and Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire which they purchased in 1903.

After the death of her husband in 1912 Lady Wernher actively pursued charitable work, particularly during the First World War. Luton Hoo was volunteered as a military HQ and hosted troop reviews by Lord Kitchener and King George V in the autumn of 1914. It was also used as a hospital for officers. Lady Alice served as a JP in Bedfordshire and was appointed a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. She was very musical and studied piano. She kept a box at the opera and organised a choir at Luton Hoo.

On 25 September 1919 she married again. Her second husband, Henry Ludlow Lopes, 2nd Baron Ludlow (1865-1922), was killed on the hunting field only three years later. Lady Ludlow died on 30 November 1945 and is buried in the Wernher mausoleum at Holy Trinity, East Hyde, Bedfordshire.

The sitter was also painted by John Singer Sargent in 1903 and that portrait is on display as part of the Wernher Collection at the Ranger’s House, London.

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939 p. 305

•The Patrician, vol.8, no 25, Summer 1917 Number, p. 40, ill.

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush With Grandeur, Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2004, p. 48, fig. 41

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 150

•DLA049-0019, Lady Wernher to de László, 14 January 1917  

EXHIBITED:

The French Gallery, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., London, June 1923, no. 35

KF 2022