Oil painting on canvas, Portrait de Lorna Marsali Woodroffe Lang, born Forbes-Leith (1893-1975), signed and dated 1916, by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937). Acquired by the National Trust for Scotland (Fyvie Castle) in 2020 with a grant of £20,000 from the National Fund for Acquisitions funded by the Scottish Government.
The National Trust for Scotland was able to acquire a very important painting for Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire in November 2020, made possible by the kind assistance of the National Fund for Acquisitions and Art Fund.
Lorna Marsali was born in 1893 to Ethel-Louise Forbes-Leith and her husband Sir Charles Rosdew Burn, who adopted his wife’s surname when she inherited Fyvie Castle from her father, Alexander Lord Leith of Fyvie. She spent her childhood at Fyvie in the North East of Scotland. In 1913 Lorna Marsali’s grandmother, Marie-Louise Lady Leith of Fyvie, commissioned the portrait from a family friend, Philip Alexius de László, portrait painter to the nobility and British Royal Family.
Eager to be useful when the First World War broke out in 1914, Lorna enlisted as a volunteer nurse at a hospital in her father’s former family home, Studely Knowle in Devon. It was during this mission, already considered daring by her family, that she fell in love with Captain Frederick Conyers-Lang. They created a scandal by eloping, marrying in London in 1916 against the advice of her family. Several sittings had taken place for the portrait before it was completed that year.
Unfortunately, Lang’s fickle reputation was borne out and the marriage was not a happy one. In 1933, then a mother of two and more strong-willed than ever, Lorna divorced Lang and remarried the same year. Her new husband, Colonel George Prior, had known Lang at Sandhurst and there is a suggestion that he had pursued Lorna before she eloped with Lang. Passionate about horses and racing and rejecting the hectic social life of London, Lorna settled at her country estate, Fishleigh House. On the death of her husband she moved to Thorpe Mandeville Manor where she died in 1975.
Although her family forgave Lorna shortly after the elopement and welcomed her back to the fold, the painting was never hung at Fyvie as intended, passing by descent to Lorna’s granddaughter who eventually sold it. Having been listed in the de Laszlo Archives Trust as ‘untraced’ since its commission, its provenance is now confirmed. The family connection endures since the painting has united cousins who did not know of one another’s existence until the portrait came to light.
Vikki Duncan
Curator North
National Trust for Scotland
https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/fyvie-castle
National Fund for Acquisitions 