Lavery's Portrait Fiasco

Irish painter Sir John Lavery lamented in his memoirs that it is impossible to both capture a true likeness of a portrait subject and also please that subject.

The problem is compounded by the fact that most portraits are not commissioned by the subject, but rather by a relative or spouse, and their feelings must be taken into account, too. 

He recalls one time when "A Lady Somebody wanted a semi-state portrait to hang beside the Gainsborough and Romney in the ancestral hall of her husband, who was to know nothing until the work was complete." 

(Portraits are by John Lavery but not the one referred to in this story)

"The day at last arrived and with it the husband. Planting himself in front of the picture with both hands resting on a gold-headed cane, he maintained an ominous silence while his eyes roamed over the canvas."

"At last, raising a hand, covering the figure, and concentrating on the head, he spoke. 'I pass the forehead and the eyes. I move my hand downwards: the nose the mouth the chin, them also I pass. I move my hand yet lower: what is this flat-chested modernity that I see? Where is the snowy amplitude of Her Ladyship? No, Sir John Lavery, that does not represent my wife.'"

"Her Ladyship stood by his chair almost in tears, saying, 'I will not have an eighth of an inch added.' I had tried to please both and, of course, had failed."

"Later, I wrote to His Lordship that I felt he was justified in his criticism, and that if he was still in the same mind I would, with his permission, cancel the commission, and that he should take back the very expensive and highly carved frame he had ordered. He accepted."

He painted another portrait over the canvas.

Quoted from The Life of a Painter by Sir John Lavery.