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Lot Essay
Elizabeth Asquith (Princess Bibesco) was born in 1897, the daughter of Margot (née Tennant) and Herbert Asquith, Liberal Prime Minister 1908-916. Her marriage in 1919 to the Romanian diplomat Prince Antoine Bibesco was London’s society wedding of the year. Shortly afterwards the couple moved to Paris, where Augustus John had been commissioned to record the British Delegates attending the Peace Conference. This tedious work did not go well: ‘The aspect of the immense hall with its interminable rows of seated figures was, visually, merely boring’ he wrote. He had better success painting portraits of the many famous individuals he met at the Hotel Majestic and at parties in the Avenue Montaigne. As Michael Holroyd wrote in his biography of the artist: ‘All red carpets led to him. The Prime Ministers of Australia, France, Canada and New Zealand submitted to his brush; kings and maharajas, dukes and generals, lords of finance froze before him; the Emir Faisal posed; Lawrence of Arabia took his place humbly in the queue […]. More wonderful still were the princesses, infantas, duchesses, marchesas who lionized him’ (M. Holroyd, Augustus John: The New Biography, London, 1996, p. 440).
According to John’s recollections in Chiaroscuro the future Princess Bibesco was visiting Paris shortly before her marriage that spring. ‘When Miss Elizabeth Asquith arrived in Paris, I induced her to pose for me. This brilliant young woman used to beguile the tedium of sitting by composing poetry which from time to time she recited aloud. This diverted her, no doubt, but put an extra strain on my powers of concentration.’ He goes on to describe her ‘cerebral acrobatics’ and confessed to being ‘dazzled’ by her. Marcel Proust, a close friend of her husband Antoine, was similarly impressed, declaring that she was ‘probably unsurpassed in intelligence by any of her contemporaries’ and in a letter to her he praised her beauty and ‘calm, strong presence’. Antoine observed that she ‘completely dazzled Marcel Proust' (Letters of Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco, 1949, English tr. 1953). John’s first portrait of her, titled The White Feather Boa (Elizabeth Asquith) was reproduced in Chiaroscuro with the caption ‘painted in Paris in 1919’. It now hangs in Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Elizabeth Bibesco had also befriended the painter Edouard Vuillard, who painted her seated in the interior of her Paris apartment. This painting, dated circa 1920, is now in the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, Brazil.
In 1920 Prince Antoine’s diplomatic career necessitated a move to Washington, where the couple stayed until 1926. It is tempting to speculate that John’s second portrait, dated 1924 (the present work) was painted during his visit to the U.S. from April to June that year, but it is perhaps more likely that it was painted while she was on a visit to London as the portrait was exhibited in the R.A.’s Summer Exhibition, which opened in early May. She poses in a magnificent white lace mantilla, a gift to her father Herbert Asquith from the Queen of Portugal and on her lap she holds one of her own books. As well as poetry she wrote four novels and two plays, and died in 1945, aged 48, in Romania.
We are very grateful to Rebecca John for preparing this catalogue entry.
According to John’s recollections in Chiaroscuro the future Princess Bibesco was visiting Paris shortly before her marriage that spring. ‘When Miss Elizabeth Asquith arrived in Paris, I induced her to pose for me. This brilliant young woman used to beguile the tedium of sitting by composing poetry which from time to time she recited aloud. This diverted her, no doubt, but put an extra strain on my powers of concentration.’ He goes on to describe her ‘cerebral acrobatics’ and confessed to being ‘dazzled’ by her. Marcel Proust, a close friend of her husband Antoine, was similarly impressed, declaring that she was ‘probably unsurpassed in intelligence by any of her contemporaries’ and in a letter to her he praised her beauty and ‘calm, strong presence’. Antoine observed that she ‘completely dazzled Marcel Proust' (Letters of Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco, 1949, English tr. 1953). John’s first portrait of her, titled The White Feather Boa (Elizabeth Asquith) was reproduced in Chiaroscuro with the caption ‘painted in Paris in 1919’. It now hangs in Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Elizabeth Bibesco had also befriended the painter Edouard Vuillard, who painted her seated in the interior of her Paris apartment. This painting, dated circa 1920, is now in the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, Brazil.
In 1920 Prince Antoine’s diplomatic career necessitated a move to Washington, where the couple stayed until 1926. It is tempting to speculate that John’s second portrait, dated 1924 (the present work) was painted during his visit to the U.S. from April to June that year, but it is perhaps more likely that it was painted while she was on a visit to London as the portrait was exhibited in the R.A.’s Summer Exhibition, which opened in early May. She poses in a magnificent white lace mantilla, a gift to her father Herbert Asquith from the Queen of Portugal and on her lap she holds one of her own books. As well as poetry she wrote four novels and two plays, and died in 1945, aged 48, in Romania.
We are very grateful to Rebecca John for preparing this catalogue entry.