A photographic portrait of the Waugh family has been posted on the internet. This is a color photograph by Mark Gerson taken in front of the house at Combe Florey. The posting is on a site apparently sponsored by the National Portrait Gallery. It includes Waugh and his wife and children as well as two Italian servants. From left to right the subjects include Auberon, Evelyn, Septimus, Teresa, James, servant 1, Harriet, Laura and servant 2. The photo was taken in April 1959 and, according to Martin Stannard, was the last time the family was photographed together. The circumstances of the photograph and the visit to Combe Florey by Gerson and his wife are described in detail by Martin Stannard in Evelyn Waugh:The Later Years, New York, 1992, pp. 417-19. For some reason not explained, the photo is not included in the U.S. edition of Stannard’s text, perhaps because it was in color. Stannard writes that the photographs taken by Gerson on that occasion later appeared in Good Housekeeping and Tatler.
NOTE: An additional family color photo from the 1959 Mark Gerson shoot (which Gerson dates as having been taken in March) as well as an earlier black and white photo from 1951, both from the NPG collection, appear here.
