The portrait of Lady Northcliffe by Philip de László that sold for £32,000 at Moore Allen & Innocent.
The painting was untraced until she appeared at the Moore, Allen & Innocent auction despite many years of searching by us.
We knew of its existence from a photograph in the Illustrated London News (May 27, 1911), kept by the artist and now part of the expansive de László Archive.
During his lifetime de László was one of the most famous artists in the world and painted many powerful and influential figures in Europe and the US in the late 19th and early 20th century.
He was very aware of his posthumous reputation and kept all his letters, press cuttings and exhibition catalogues.
The edition of Illustrated London News from 1911 featuring the de László portrait of Lady Northcliffe, bottom left. The other de László portraits shown depict La comtesse Greffulhe, top left; Margot Asquith, top right, and William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne.
Invaluable resource
Work is ongoing to digitise these and make them available on our website.
It is an invaluable resource for historians of the period and we anticipate the artist’s film archive to be available from September 2022.
The archive informs the work of Catalogue Raisonné of Works by de László, freely available on our website. It is a work in progress and we upload catalogue entries as we complete them; currently some 2000 works are available of an estimated 5000.
These include preparatory drawings and oils for the portraits as well as the artist’s early genre pictures and landscapes painted for pleasure on his international travels fulfilling commissions.
We are always very pleased to help any individuals with questions or research enquiries and welcome assistance locating those works that still elude us. An illustrated list of the missing pictures as well as the works in public collections can be consulted on the website below.
Katherine Field
Senior editor of the Catalogue Raisonné of Works by de László
