Figure 1.--László's fourth son, Patrick, had a shock of bright red hair. His father we suspect may have taken a little artistic license in this 1918 portrait.

Being based in Londion, many of László's portraits are British. He was extrodinarily prolific artist--over 4,000 works if you count the drawings. They amount to an extrodinary record of the rich and famous. He is commonly classified as a society portrait painter, but his portraits include many industrialists, scientists, politicians and painters, men and women of letters and many other eminent individuals. There are several portraits of children, most are of his six sons. He seems to have used them as a diversion and to experiment with different styles. The porttrait here is of Stephen, his second son painted at the breakfast table in 1912. There are also several portraits of children from wealthy families done as commissions. These society children re not his best works. And there is a portrait of who László called a 'Nubian servant boy', but was not really a Nubian. We are not sure if he actually visited Egypt or the boy was employed in Britain.

Sons

There are several portraits of children, most are of his five sons. He seems to have used them as a diversions and to experiment with different styles. The one of Stephen, his second son is seen here in 1912. We have seen about 10 works of the boys, but there may be more. The earlies shows John, his oldest son in 1906. The waea a beret and sailor outfits with ringlet curlks. Several were painted in costume or bathrobes. One shows his youngest son Jonn wearing a smock in 1917. Smocks were not very common for British boys, but some boys from affluent familes wore smocks like Christopher Robin Milne. None of these paintings are as good as the one of Stephen, but they are a good record of boys in the early-20th century. One shows Patrick with flaming red hair. Several are of the younger boys, but we also see the boys a little older one in the chemistry lab or for some reason in Spanish drama garb.

Figure 2.--This portrait of Philippe de Gramon is one of László's commissiined works. We have not been able to find any information about about Philippe. The portrait was done in 1928. Many of these portraits are done with the boys wearing blouses, in this case with a velvet suit. By the 1929s these facy blouses were no longer very common for school age boys. We are not sure if he was going after the Byron look or tht blouses were relatively easy to paint because there were so few details. And he liked to have the boys holding books.

Commissioned Works

László primarily painted the rich and famous of the era. Most of his portraits are adults from wealthy and important families. His body of work is a marvelous pictoral record. And given the huge number of portraits, there is no artist that approached László in creating such a record. The rich and famous of course have children. And often they want portraits done of their wives and children. There were thus several commissioned portraits of children. Given the number of portraits he did, we would have excpected many more family portraits. We have found a few, but not all that many. Most of the children are nanmed, but we have not been able to find a lot of information on all of them. The portraits do , however, provide a record of how well to do children were dressed. The outfits vary. Some are formal, but we also see informal images as well. For somecreasons the boys are mostly shown with blouses. We are nor sure judt why. Blouses with a book suggest Lord Byron. Perhaps it was because were easy to paint as there was so little detail. And unlike the photographic record, we have color information. As far as we know, all of the portraits of the children, followed from portraits done of their parents.

Nubian Servant Boy

There is a portrait of who László called a 'Nubian servant boy'. We have no idea who he was, but he was clearly not a Nubian. Perhaps he was called a Nubian because it added a little exoticism to the boy's origin. Nubia/Kush is a region along the upper (southern) Nile, roughly the region between Aswan in southern Egypt and Khartoum in central Sudan most noted as a source of gold and slaves. There was a Nubian/Kushite Egyptian dynasty--the 25th dynasty (8th century BC). The Nubian population was ethnically African. The boy here is clearly Arab and and not African. We have read about foreign servanbts, but in Britain at least they were more likely to be Indian than Arab. We are not sure if László actually visited Egypt or if the boy employed somwhere in Europe. László took commissions from all over Europe. We think it most likely that the portrait was done somewhere in Britain because of the enormous wealth of many British families and the imperial connections. It could have, however, been done on the Continent. We do not know if László visited Egypt, he did travel widely. But this is the only Arab portrait we have found. Another interesting question is why László painted this portrait. Except for his family, this is the only person he painted that did not come from a wealthy or prominent family. And his fees were substantial. It was not like a photographic portrait. This boy's employer must have thought very highly of him to have commissioned a portrait. Or perhaps László took an interest in him which painting a portrait in a wealthy household.

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Created: 4:03 AM 10/14/2018
Last updated: 4:03 AM 10/14/2018