Overall: 32cm (12.5in) x 42cm (16.5in)
Oil on board. Inscribed verso ‘The Picture Gallery / The Grange, Arlesford / The Home of Mr Wallach / Frank E. Beresford / The Hall Studio / 23A Grove End Rd / St John’s Wood, London /NW8’. Signed and dated lower right ‘Frank E Beresford / 1937’. Framed.
In 1934 The Grange and 600 acres of parkland were sold to the tycoon and art collector Charles Wallach. The rest of the estate remained in the ownership of the Baring banking family. The October 1935 edition of ‘Antique Collector’ noted that The Grange ‘which seemed doomed to become derelict’ had ‘during the last 18 months been transformed into a palace of art treasures entirely fitting its former glory’. The picture, gallery ‘formerly a ball-room, had been debased to a badminton court before Mr Wallach adapted it to its present purpose’. In 1943 the main house was requisitioned by the US Ninth Army, and soldiers of the 47th US Infantry enjoyed a large Christmas party in the picture gallery. On 24 March 1944 the Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Dwight D. Eisenhower met at The Grange to discuss the Invasion of Normandy.
Frank Beresford was born in Derby in 1881 and trained at the Derby School of Art (1895-1900), the Académie Carmen (Paris), St John's Wood Art Schools (1900-1901) and the Royal Academy Schools (1901-1906). Between 1906 and 1908, Beresford was elected to a British Institution Scholarship and embarked on a 30,000 mile, 18-month-long international painting tour, during which he attended the Meiji Emperor’s annual tea party in Tokyo. Before the Great War, Beresford also designed murals for St Bartholomew the Great Church, Smithfield and received an art award from the Japanese Government (1909). In the the First World War he served as an instructor in the London Regiment. A natural salesman, he received over 3,000 individual commissions from royalty, aristocracy, ex-civic leaders and politicians, senior army officers, society figures, celebrities and industrialists. His many oil paintings of historical events included the famous: The Princes' Vigil: 12.15am, January 28 1936, (1936), depicting George V lying in state in Westminster Hall. In the inter-war years, Beresford also specialised in interiors, animals, landscapes, aircraft and murals. He served as an official War Artist for the RAF and was also accredited to the US Army and USAAF. He painted the lying in state of George VI (1952) and Queen Mary (1953) and The Morning Ride, featuring Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. An account of his life was written in 2008 by biographer John Fineran: ‘Frank E. Beresford: Indomitable Self Belief 1881-1967’.