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modern life’ was the painter’s sole objective. In this instance, the
twenty-six year old Mrs Peto took him close to achieving his goal.
Although of different generations, Ruby, like Lavery, had been
married for less than a year when the portrait was painted. A scion
of the Crawford and Balcarres dynasty, Frances Vera Ruby Lindsay
(1884- 1951), was a favoured cousin of Diana and Marjorie Manners,
daughters of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland. According to
Lady Diana, she ‘... did not lack for swains, being very beautiful and
spirited’. Accompanying the Manners’ daughters to Florence in her
early twenties, and touring the galleries with her Baedeker, she was
discovered ‘making eyes at the uniformed officers’.3 In July 1909, Ruby
Lindsay married a dashing member of the Diplomatic Service, Ralph
Harding Peto (1877-1945) at a ceremony for 600 guests at St Margaret’s
Church, Westminster.4 After their honeymoon in Paris, the couple
quickly became prominent society figures
and were frequently mentioned in ‘court circulars’. Ruby attended at
first nights, concerts, charity ‘masques’ and tableaux in which she, like
Hazel Lavery, often took a leading role.
It is not known how she and the Laverys first met, but her name was
frequently joined with that of Lady Diana, the Asquith sisters, Gwendoline Churchill, Duff Cooper and the Laverys in the
years leading up to the Great War. Cooper records her husband, now a major in the 10th Royal Hussars attending bridge,
poker and drinking soirées around the time of the birth of his daughter, Maud Rosemary Peto, at the beginning of April
1916. By the early twenties, scarred by the war, Peto’s drinking and consequent rows with his wife, was sadly giving
cause for concern, and the marriage ended in 1923.5 A few years later Ruby changed her
name back to Lindsay.
Happier times are nevertheless reflected in the present portrait.
The theatrical treatment of A Bacchante may indeed anticipate
the eagerly awaited Anna Pavlova season which enthralled
London society in the summer of 1910. In this, the Russian dancer
created a sensation by performing the danse bacchanale from
Marius Pepita’s ballet, The Seasons.6 Lavery was immediately
commissioned by the editor of The Illustrated London News
to produce a study of the dancer for a two-page colour
reproduction in the weekly (fig 3) which echoes the theatrical air
of
the Peto portrait.7 Although the original commission was for no
more than an unfinished sketch, there are remarkable resonances
between it and the present picture, in that both show the sitter, in
half-length, turning to address the spectator.
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 30IMPORTANT IRISH ART ·
25 MAY 2015 AT 6PM