Master Art

A fine example of Luis Welden Hawkins’s refined draughtsmanship, this drawing in pastel, gouache and watercolour is a portrait of the French actress Jeanne-Louise-Pauline Silvain (1892-1983). Born into a theatrical family, she was the daughter of Eugène Silvain and Louise Silvain, both of whom were actors at the Comédie-Française, and the sister of the playwright Jean Silvain. In 1916 Jeanne Silvain married the theatre director and Resistance fighter Edmond Roze, and after his death in 1943 was wed to Alvin David Laidley, a UNESCO official.

A similar oval pastel portrait by Hawkins of the present sitter’s mother, Louise Silvain (1874-1930), dated March 1906, is on the art market in Paris.