Princess Natalia Pavlovna Paley (1905-1981) with Lilies
Oliver Messel (London 1904 - St James, Barbados 1978)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
c. 1935
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
745 x 615 mm
Order this imageCollection
Nymans Estate, West Sussex
NT 1206470
Caption
Born in Boulogne-sur-Seine in 1905, Natalia Pavlovna Paley was the daughter of the exiled Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and his second wife Olga Karnovich. Exiled by his nephew Tsar Nicholas II for marrying a woman of unequal social rank, the family were finally permitted to return to St Petersburg in 1912. There Natalia and her family lived luxuriously in an imperial palace filled with the fine porcelain and Old Master paintings her parents had collected while living in France. However her privileged existence was not to last. The Bolshevik uprising of 1917 led to the execution of her father, brother and, most famously, her first cousin, Tsar Nicholas II. After a harrowing escape through Finland and Sweden, Natalia found refuge in Paris. She eventually married the couturier Lucien Lelong and became a celebrated socialite, linked to the artist Jean Cocteau and dancer Serge Lifar. Beautiful and glamorous, she was a favourite model of the great fashion photographers of the day, including Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst. It's not clear how the renowned costume and set designer Oliver Messel came to paint this portrait. Messel's earliest stage commission was in 1925 for a London performance of Zéphyre et Flore by the Diaghilev Ballet. It was perhaps through this prestigious production that the paths of the up-and-coming designer and exiled Romanov princess first crossed.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Princess Natalia Pavlovna Paley (1905-1981) by Oliver Messel (London 1904 - St James, Barbados 1978), circa 1935. A three-quarter-length portrait, facing, of a young woman with blonde shoulder-length hair, dressed in black and surrounded by lilies; against a landscape background with stormy sky.
Provenance
Bought at Sotheby's, London, 27th June 1994, lot 190.
Makers and roles
Oliver Messel (London 1904 - St James, Barbados 1978), artist
