Lot 531: prince paul troubetzkoy (1866-1938), portrait of george bernard shaw (1856-1950)

depicted seated, bronze, signed and dated Paul Troubetzkoy, 1926

height 16 1/2 in. 42 cm

"Word by Bernard Shaw," in Sculpture by Prince Paul Troubetzkoy, London, 1931.
George Bernard Shaw, To a Young Actress. The Letters of Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins, ed. Peter Tompkins, New York, 1960, pp. 100-107.
Architectural Digest, May 1982, illustrated, p.182: "Historic Houses: George Bernard Shaw. The Playwright's English House at Ayot St. Lawrence"
John S. Grioni, "Portraits in Bronze," Antique Collector (London), 1984, no. 10, p. 86.
Gianna Piantoni and Paolo Venturi, Paolo Troubetzkoy, 1866-1938, Verbania Pallanza, 1990, pp. 216-217, no. 178.
John S. Grioni, "A Lifetime Friendship (George Bernard Shaw and Paul Troubetzkoy)," The Independent Shavian vol. 44, nos. 1-2 (2006): 3-13.

Collection of Princess Alexandra Troubetzkoy

George Bernard Shaw's admiration for the work of Paul Troubetzkoy is well known. In the often quoted forward to Troubetzkoy's 1931 London exhibition at Colnaghi's Old Bond Street gallery Shaw described Troubetzkoy as "one of the few geniuses of whom it is not only safe but necessary to speak in superlatives. He is the most astonishing sculptor of modern times." Shaw was not alone in recognizing Troubetzkoy's genius at sculptural portrayal. Professor Herbert Maryon, OBE, in a 1933 essay entitled, "Modern Sculpture, Its Methods and Ideals" stated "Troubetzkoy has shown the world how a true feeling for the life, the structure, the pose and the character of his subject may be combined with an amazingly direct and brilliant execution." This could not be more clearly exemplified than in the seated Shaw.

During the summer of 1926 Shaw and his wife vacationed in Stresa on the shores of Lake Maggiore not far from Troubetzkoy's studio in Verbania, Pallanza and during that time Shaw did a number of extended sittings for Troubetzkoy which resulted in three masterpieces of which the seated portrait shown here is one. The others are the standing portrait of Shaw that served as the model for the bronze in front of Dublin's National Gallery and the life-size bust now in the Tate Gallery, Millbank. While many important sculptors portrayed Shaw, Troubetzkoy was his clear favorite. Shaw and his wife so liked the seated portrait that they insisted on overpaying Troubetzkoy for it, noting that the check for 100,000 lira "probably does not even reward such beautiful work which will never be paid enough for its worth." Only one other edition of this seated portrait is known to exist and that is the one Shaw received from Troubetzkoy and it remains in Shaw's Drawing Room at his home, Shaw's Corner, in Ayot St. Lawrence, Welwyn, Hertfordshire.