The British National Portrait Gallery Finally Hanging The Duchess of Windsor

[Patdwfsyte]

The British National Portrait Gallery will finally be hanging the Duchess of
Windsor.In the Windsor auction's fifth day a portrait of the Duchess which was
done in June of 1939 at the first Paris home of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
by Gerald Leslie Brockhurst went for $107,000 yesterday. The famed pix of the
Duke of Windsor astride the horse " Forest Witch " by Sir Alfred Munnings,
painted when he was the 27 year old Prince of Wales, was bought by the usual "
old anon. " for a Munnings record $2.3 million . The Duchess was painted at the
Windsor's first Paris home on the Boulevard Souchet. Sotheby's had estimated
the painting to sell for between $70,000 and $90,000. The Daily Mail recorded
meticulously at the time how the artist had searched for a special frame and
columns were filled with the choice of frame still on the portrait today. It
was originally intended to be part of a double commission, with a painting of
the Duke to follow, but the German occupation of France ended that plan. In
this portrait Wallis is wearing a blue dress, with a Mona Lisa smile looking
straight ahead with a Van Cleef & Arpels bouquet brooch which the Duke had just
given her. Brockhurst was to disclose later that he altered the colour of the
dress to improve the color scheme not caring for the blue chosen by the
Duchess. When done the portrait hung in the library over the fireplace at the
Windsor home in the Bois de Boulogne and may be seen in pix taken of the couple
through the years as they often chose the spot to pose for photogs.