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individual artists illustrating boys fashions -- Philip de László
Philip de László: Commissioned Works of Children
Figure 1.--Andrew Charles Victor Elphinstone was the younger son of Sidney Herbert Buller Fullerton Elphinstone, 16th Lord Elphinstone and Mary Elphinstone, Lady Elphinstone. He was born in London (1918). There were connections to the royal family. Andrew was the nephew of the late Queen Mother. He is depicted here at 7 years old about 1925. It is a preliminary version for some reason. He wears a kilt of Royal Stuart tartan with matching socks. Pnly suggested in the childhood portrait, Andrew was a real Scotsman who loved Scotland and the austere countryside. When completed, this portrait depicting a loch in the distance and a bow in his right hand. Andrews family was taken with the finished portrait, commissioning their own likeness (1929).
Philip de 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 gmous 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. 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.
Andrew Elphinstone (1918-75)
Andrew Charles Victor Elphinstone was the younger son of Sidney Herbert Buller Fullerton Elphinstone, 16th Lord Elphinstone and Mary Elphinstone, Lady Elphinstone. He was born in London (1918). There were connections to the royal family. Andrew Elphinstone was the nephew of the late Queen Mother. He is depicted here at 7 years old about 1925 (figure 1). He wears a kilt of Royal Stuart tartan with matching socks. Only suggested in the childhood portrait, Andrew was a real Scotsman who loved Scotland and the austere countryside. When completed, this portrait depicting a loch in the distance and a bow in his right hand. Andrews family was taken with the finished portrait, commissioning their own likeness (1929). With the outbreak of World War II, Elphinstone served first with the Cameron Highlanders and then as Aide de Camp to the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow (1941-43). He married Jean Frances Hambro in a fashionable Westminster wedding (1946), at least as fashionanble as ione could get with rationing which continued in Britain long after the War. He then turned to religion. He was ordained into the Church of England, working in Wimborne Minster and then after as Rector in Worplesdon, Surrey. Elphinstone was a capable musician. He played piano and organ. He was also an accomplishef linguist, speaking fluent Gaelic and Urdu, quite an accomplishment. The Gaelic resulkted from his Scottish heritage. The Urdu was learned while working in India during the War. He also had writing skills. His book Freedom, Suffering and Love was published posthumously.
László is best known for painting European aristocrats and other wealthy individuals. A apparently he also painted wealthy Americans. This painting is Mrs. Francis P. Garvan and her four children, two boys and two girls. They seem to have had an estate in Oyster Bay on Long Island , New York where the portrait was painted. President Theodore Roosevelt also had an estate there--Sagamore Hill. Francis P. Garvan (1875-1937) was a lawyer, government official, and long-time president of the Chemical Foundation, Inc. He was appointed by Presidebnt Wilson after Attornry General Palmer stepped down, The Chemical Foundation was established to administer 4,500 German patents associated with production of synthetic organic chemicals and related pharmaceuticals. They were seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian after World War I as war reparations. His sister, Genevieve Garvan, married prominent New York City businessman, Nicholas Frederic Brady (1906). Garvan married Nicholas Brady's sister, Mabel (1910). The couple had seven children, six of whom survived to adulthood:
Patricia Garvan (d. 1918),
Francis Patrick Garvan, Jr.,
Mabel Brady Garvan (Mrs. Robert Philip Noble) (d. 1972),
Flora Brady Garvan (Mrs. Francis D. Winslow 2d),
Anthony Nicholas Brady Garvan,
Peter Dunne Garvan, and
Marcia Anne Garvan (d. 2014). The children here appar to be Franvus Jr., Mabel, Flora, and Anothy. The portraitbwas painted shortly after Gavin took on the task of administeringbthev Chemnical Foundation. The girls wear colored dresses with hair bows. Mabel's dress has a huge pink waist sash, Francus Jr. wears a black suit with an Eton collar. Anthoiny wears a Fauntlrroy suit with an open ncolllar and short pants. .
Philippe de Gramon (1928)
A portrait of Philippe de Gramon is one of László's commissioned works. The portait appears on the previous page. 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 1920s 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 that blouses were relatively easy to paint because there were so few details. And he liked to have the boys holding books.
We have been unable to find any information about Raymond and his family. All we know for sure that László painted the portrait in 1923. We believe that Raymond is connected to the Johnson-Ferguson Baronetcy, of Springkell in the County of Dumfries, of Kenyon in Newchurch-in-Culcheth in the County Palatine of Lancaster and of Wiston in the County of Lanark. The Baronetcy was created in 1906 for Edward Johnson-Ferguson. He was Chairman of Jabez Johnson, Hodgkinson and Pearson, Ltd, and also sat as Liberal Member of Parliament for Loughborough. He was born Edward Johnson but assumed by Royal licence the additional surname of Ferguson (1881). All of these commissioned portraits of boys show them in blouses giving thenm a rather poetic look as the outfits and thin book seems to remind one of Lord Byron. We do not know if this is what László had in mind, but think it is unmlikely all the psrents had the same idea.
All of these portraits show boys in blouses, rather fancy blouses worn open. The portrait here shows Raymonmd wearing a blue velvet jacket over the blouse and what may be a tan vest along with a fancy jabot. Anoyther portrait of Raymond a couple years earlier shows him wearing the blouse open. We are not sure about the clothing choices here. The boys are about the same age and painted at about the same time. These blouses are what the boys at the time would have worn for formal occassions like weddngs, but not for casual wear. He is holding a book which also dies not quite fit the outfit, but Charles Lang also seems to be holding the same book. This was a posing device.
Charles Douglas Conyers Lang was born (1918). His father was Capt. Conyers Frederick Woodroffe Laing (who had changed his name to Lang), and his wife Lorna Marsalie Burn. Lorna was the daughter of Sir Charles Rosdew Burn, later Sir Charles Rosdew Forbes-Leith, 1st Baronet of Fyvie (1891-1930). Both she and her father were painted by de László during World War (1915-16). Her brother Arthur was opained posthumously (1915). This was before László was interned because of his Hungarian birth. László apparently because of this relationship with her family, offered to paint Charles for a reduced fee when approached by his mother (1925). We suspect that the fee was still sizeable given László's status. The sitting was postponed a while. As she explained, "He is just losing his teeth too which does not improve his appearance." The portrait was painted a year later (1926). The portrait is rather infirmal, but curiously shows Charles wearing a rather formal blouse that would not have been chosen for informal dress. One source writes, "De László, with his alla primatechnique, probably executed this painting in two or three sittings of two hours. This gives freshness and immediacy to the portrait, which conveys well the spontaneity of childhood." We don't think the portrait quite achieves that, but we think it is better than the Andrew Elphinstone portrait. We do not know much about Charles, but he was awarded the Military Cross during World War II (1944).
