The King
The Jefferson Library, Voss Court, Hampshire, 1937
Meredith Frampton was one of the most respected society painters of his generation, in exactly the right period: his clientele included the Duke of York, later King George VI. His most celebrated work is literally called A Game of Patience, a painting of a young woman playing cards at a table, exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1937. A critic described it as "a tour-de-force of fastidious craftsmanship … surely no Englishman has painted in a way so learned and so deadly."
Sir Reginald commissioned the present work in 1937, just after A Game of Patience had made Frampton's name. He arranged for Frampton to drive out from London to Voss Court, explaining that a delightful game of whist had been played a few years back and he would like it commemorated in oil.
Sir Reginald met Frampton in the Jefferson Library, showed him the table where the game had been played, and explained what he wanted captured on canvas. Frampton took detailed notes and several photographs, then opened his portfolio case to show a range of the styles he was comfortable working in. The first sample he selected was The Next Trick.
The Next Trick, Meredith Frampton, 1937. Rejected by Sir Reginald Voss.
Sir Reginald looked at it and said, "Definitely not. I don't care what accolades it received from the art community. No offense to the sitter, but she looks like an opium-addicted prostitute in a French bordello, whiling away the time until her next client arrives."
Frampton took no offense; the style, he knew perfectly well, sold very reliably to certain critics and certain salons in London, just evidently not to this customer.
He made his living from paying customers, and he had seen enough of Voss Court on the way in (the Géricaults, the Lawrence, the rest of it) to know this customer could pay rather better than most. He tried again, pulling a second sample from the case.
"Perhaps this suits your taste better," he said. "A portrait of His Majesty, sat for shortly after the Coronation."
King George VI, Meredith Frampton, 1937. Jefferson Library, Voss Court, Hampshire.
Sir Reginald studied it a long moment, and his face eased with what looked almost like relief. "George, yes. Good man. Good king." He glanced up at Frampton. "I'll tell you plainly, sir, so there's no confusion about it later, had you shown me a portrait of the previous fellow, I'd have had you burn it in that grate before you'd got it fully out of the case. This family didn't fight two wars for King and Country to hang a man who walked away from the job over a woman from Baltimore. George stayed. George will do." He noticed Frampton's careful, professional silence on the matter, and took it, correctly, for the diplomacy it was. "I see a good spot for this on the wall just there. Frame it for me directly."
"Very good, Sir Reginald." Frampton hesitated, sensing an opening. "I understand you served in East Africa during the Great War. I didn't see an official portrait of you coming in. Have you ever thought of sitting for one yourself?"
"Why, yes. Splendid idea. Draw up a written estimate for the three of them: His Majesty's portrait, A Game of Whist, and my own."
"Splendid indeed, sir."
After the recent war, a Frampton portrait of George VI in his red uniform went to auction at Sotheby's and fetched a considerably better price than most of his society work from the period, the one king in the set, F-M notes dryly, whom nobody in this archive ever expressed the slightest wish to see burned. Frampton, by then, had sold a version of the same portrait to nearly every great estate in Hampshire regardless.