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PAUL CÉSAR HELLEU (1859-1927)
Portrait of Pamela Mitford
Pastel, 78 x 62cm (30½ x 24½’’)
Signed
Provenance: A gift from the sitter to Canon R.J. Hazelton and thence by descent to the current owner.
Helleu remained independent from ‘The Impressionists’, mixing instead with John McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent
with whom he shared a studio. He moved within a network of high society both in France and England and is well known for
his long flowing strokes that capture a natural elegance that flattered his sitters. The artist’s passion for yachting brought him
into contact with the Mitford family with whom he spent time in Deauville during the 1890’s, painting several portraits of the
sitter’s mother, Lady Sidney Redesdale. Their acquaintance developed into a lasting friendship and the Mitfords were regular
guests of Helleu and his wife Alice.
When aged only 16, Diana Mitford went to study in Paris, the artist took her under his wing and was quite smitten by the
young girl who he likened to a Greek goddess. He painted several portraits of her and certainly did not allow the fifty year
difference in age interfere with his flirtatious advances.
This portrait is of Diana’s elder sister Pamela and was painted around her 18th birthday. Probably the least well known of the
Mitford girls, she found Helleu’s advances tiresome. After many suitors, including John Betjeman who proposed to her twice,
Pamela aged 29 finally married Derek Jackson. Jackson, an Oxford scientist, was also an amateur jockey with a love of hunting.
They set up home together at Tullamaine Castle outside Fethard in Co. Tipperary where they rode out with the ‘Gallant Tipps’.
Pamela loved all things rural and was initially very happy at Tullamaine where guests included Evelyn Waugh, Harold Mac-
millan and the local hunting families, the Earl and Countess Donoughmore, the Bourkes and Ponsonbys. Her sister Debo,
Duchess of Devonshire regularly visited their Irish seat, Lismore Castle for the fishing; while her other sister Diana, married
Sir Oswald Mosley and moved to Ilecash House in Fermoy after their home Clonfert Palace in Galway burnt down were also
regular visitors as was Nancy Mitford. After 1950, Pamela’s own marriage to Derek fell apart but she remained at Tullamaine
for another eight years, where she was joined by her Italian friend and keen horsewoman Giuditta Tomassi.
The vendor, then a young boy at the nearby Church of Ireland rectory, remembers going to the castle - which he describes
being colder than his own home - to play chess with Pamela, surrounded by her beloved dachshunds. She was a close friend
to his parents and a regular visitor to their home. Just before she left Tipperary for Switzerland she came to the rectory and
gave his parents this painting as her parting gift. It has remained in their family ever since.
€ 20,000 - 30,000