Portrait of a boy

Details

Sir Stanley Spencer, R.A. (1891-1959)
Portrait of a boy
pencil and oil on canvas, unframed
17 x 13 in. (43.2 x 33 cm.)
Painted circa 1920.

Provenance

Sir Henry Slesser.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 19 June 1974, lot 95.
with Fine Art Society, London.

Literature

K. Bell, Stanley Spencer, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London, 1992, p. 403, no. 68.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

Sir Henry (later Lord Justice Slesser) was an important early patron of Sir Stanley Spencer. Living a few miles from Cookham at Bourne End the Slesser's house contained a private oratory for which Spencer painted The Last Supper, 1920 (Stanley Spencer Gallery) and The Money Changers triptych. Spencer lived with the Slessers for a year from April 1919 and he was given a room overlooking the Thames. (See K. Bell, Stanley Spencer: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London, 1992, pp. 56, 394).

Keith Bell has suggested that the sitter of this portrait may be a grandson of Sir Henry Slesser. We are very grateful to Keith Bell for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot.

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