Lot Essay
Costume portraits of Beaton's sister and mother comprising one of Baba posed in a medieval dress of silver brocade; three of her as Lady Mary Beaton, one of the four maids of Mary, Queen of Scots; one of her at fifteen (illus.); a portrait of Esther Beaton as Lady Mary Beaton and two of her as Madame de Pompadour. David Mellor writes of this period in Beaton's early career when he was especially concerned about the social standing of his family and promoted a fictitious line of descent from the Beatons in the court of Mary Stuart. For a brief period during 1925 he also signed his work with the name of Crivelli after the Venetian Renaissance artist Carlo Crivelli.