Mrs Frederick Lorenz Pratt, née Jeannie Jewett Williams

In May 1928, the sitter travelled to Paris with her friend Mrs. John Marshall Slaton, who would be painted by de László the following year. She immediately wrote to the artist to arrange for sittings for a portrait in London in June. She held the artist in high esteem, referring to him as 'cher maitre [sic.]' in her letters. There exists another oil portrait of the sitter, painted in 1929, which remains in possession of the sitter’s family. There is also a drawing, made in preparation for the present portrait, which remained in the possession of the artist on his death.

De László had previously painted the sitter’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert Livingston Fryer in 1923. Other members of the Fryer family were also painted by de Laszlo, including the sitter’s nephew, Mr. Livingston Fryer and his wife.

Jeannie Jewett Williams was born in 1868, daughter of Charles Howard Williams (1842-1909), a banker of Buffalo, New York, and his wife Emma Alice Jewett (1844-1909), daughter of a leading Buffalo industrialist. Much of her childhood was spent in Europe, and it was there, in 1895, that Sir Hubert von Herkomer saw her, a 'brunette with an exquisite creamy complexion', and asked permission to paint her portrait.

In 1907 she married Frederick Lorenz Pratt (1849-1922) at the Buffalo home of her parents at 690 Delaware Avenue. He was the eldest son of the Buffalo civic leader, banker and industrialist, Pascal Paoli Pratt and his wife Phoebe. There were no children of the marriage. After the death of both of her parents in 1909, the couple moved into their home, which had been designed by the famous firm of McKim, Mead & White in the 1890s. Mrs. Pratt became 'a social luminary' both in the U.S. and on the Continent. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and served many times as President of the Board of Managers of Children’s Hospital, Buffalo, and on the boards of Buffalo General Hospital and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In the aftermath of the First World War, she funded the restoration of the Cathedral St. Pierre de Roud, at Sens, France as well other parts of the village and the local museum.

Her husband died in 1922, leaving her a wealthy widow, though much of her fortune was lost in the crash of the U.S. stock market of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. After her house was confiscated by the City of Buffalo for back taxes, she moved to the Park Lane Hotel in Buffalo. It later became a meeting hall for Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans of the grand Army of the Republic.
Mrs Pratt died in 1949, and is buried in the Williams-Pratt Mausoleum in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York.

We are grateful to Katherine Field for writing the catalogue entry for this portrait, which is included in the Philip de László catalogue raisonné, currently presented in progress online: www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com.