ABSTRACT
Adrian Stokes first offered to commission a portrait by Coldstream of Melanie Klein at the beginning of 1952. By then Coldstream had become professor of fine arts and principal of the Slade in London. Whether or not Klein knew this, she appreciated Stokes's offer to commission a portrait of her by Coldstream. "I have given some thought to it and also discussed it with a few friends who agree with your arguments in favour of this suggestion," she told Stokes on 19 January 1952." Joan Riviere had been one of the first psychoanalysts to welcome Klein's move from Berlin to London in 1926. Riviere also edited contributions by Klein and her followers to controversial discussions in the British Psycho-Analytical Society into a book, Developments in Psycho-Analysis. The same month, March 1952, despite Riviere's reservations about Coldstream painting Klein's portrait, Klein began sitting for it.
