CITTA VIOLENTA

László de Lombos, from Budapest via Paris, 1912.

László had not only painted the Austrian foreign secretary, Count Berchtold, regarded by many as responsible for the war; he had also been ennobled by Emperor Franz Josef in 1912. After warnings, he was arrested in the summer of 1917 and accused of making contact with the enemy by sending letters to his mother and brother. He was locked up in Brixton prison and Holloway internment camp as an enemy alien. He didn't sympathise with the enemy: the range of his sitters reveals his even-handedness. He was released due to ill-health, but was not vindicated until the summer of 1919. He had been unable to paint anyone outside his own family for two years.

Served fermented shark on bone china. Feet washed in crushed ice. Scalp massage with olive oil and surgical spirit. Travelled to take Mrs Edmund Buchanan, 1929. That painting of particular value to me, because of something about to be lost: by war, the occult and communism in accidental alliance. Everything, on the brink! Thence execute escape, underground and inconspicious, tossing bombs at carriages, blinded by vodka in Siberia.