“the Baudelaire” Neville Stephen Lytton. Portrait Of Alexandra Fortel

For its melancholy, its beauty and its sadness, this work was named "the Baudelaire" by the descendants of the artist. Neville Stephen Lytton (1879-1951), 3rd Earl of Lytton, Member of the Order of the British Empire, is a British artist. He is the younger son of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, and the grandson of the famous novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler. Neville Lytton was born in India, when his father was viceroy. He studied at Eton and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. During the First World War, Neville Lytton served as an officer on the Western Front and played an active role particularly in the Somme and at Amiens. According to contemporary accounts1, he was regarded as “a gentleman of the old school” and served “with gallantry and distinction”. For his services, the French government awarded him the distinction of Knight of the Legion of Honor. Shortly after the end of the war, the Imperial War Museum and the Musée de la Guerre in France acquired examples of his art, several of which apparently traveled with him. A mural by Lytton reflecting his wartime experiences can be seen in the Victory Hall in the village of Balcombe (West Sussex). Between approximately 1900 and 1940, Lytton exhibited his works in the most important galleries such as the Alpine Club Gallery, the Beaux Arts Gallery, the Dowdeswell Galleries, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and at the Royal Academy in London. Neville Lytton was also elected associate of the Société nationale des beaux-arts de Paris, where he exhibited his works. He married Judith Blunt, later Baroness Wentworth, in 1899 and divorced in 1923. From this union were born three children, Noel Anthony Scawen Lytton-Milbanke, 4th Earl of Lytton and 17th Baron Wentworth, Lady Anne and Lady Winifred, heritage of their maternal grandmother Augusta Ada Byron. A profile sketch of the earl is on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Out of love for a young French woman, Alexandra Fortel, he decides to abandon his fortune as well as his aristocratic life in the United Kingdom. This work represents a portrait of Alexandra Fortel around 1925. A few years after his divorce in 1923, he remarried Alexandra Fortel. The count and his second family resided in France in Paris, rue du Val de Grâce. The couple maintained numerous friendships within political, artistic and intellectual circles. Notably with Winston Churchill and Theodor Pallady. Dimensions: 1m 16 x 89.5 cm Unsigned, artist's studio stamp on the back on the canvas and on the stretcher. Provenance: bottom of the artist's studio among his descendants. Without supervision