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Study portrait

Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark, later Margravine of Baden 1928

Bust length, wearing a dark long-sleeved dress with earrings and a two-stranded pearl necklace

Oil on canvas, 22 x 13 cm (5 ⅛ x 8 ⅝ in.) [present dimensions]

Originally inscribed lower right: de László / 1928 II

Laib L14943 (410) / C10 (6)

NPG Album 1927-28, f. 12: Princess Marina [sic]

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 58: Theodora / Princess of Greece . / Feb: 4th 1928.

Private Collection

This portrait was badly damaged in a fire in 1931 and now survives only as a fragment. Princess Nicholas of Greece [11628] mentioned the loss in a letter answering de László’s request for pictures to include in his exhibition at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris that year: “As regards the portrait of my brother Andrew’s daughter Theodora. I am very sorry to remind you of the sad fate that befell this picture during the fire that broke out in my brother’s flat about three months ago. I believe I mentioned the fact to you when I had the great pleasure of meeting you at the duc de Grammont’ [sic] party. I am afraid the picture has been irreparably damaged.”^[1]     

De László painted this portrait and one of Princess Theodora’s sister Princess Margarita [8195] as a silver wedding anniversary present for Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece [6622] [6615]. Princess Andrew had commissioned them herself and her family decided to pay for them as a gift. The Royal historian Hugo Vickers recounts that: “Alice was very pleased and wrote to her brother Dickie [Lord Mountbatten [3510]]: “I can’t tell you what pleasure your joint gift of pictures of the girls has given Andrea and me. Dolla’s is ready & perfectly charming & Margarita is being done this week, as de László delayed his arrival here [to St. Cloud].”^[2] Princess Alice later wrote to de László: “The girls’ pictures are hanging here in the sitting-room & they are the joy of my life. I gaze at them every day & everybody who comes in raves about them. Hoping to see you in London. Love from Alice.”^[3] 

De László mentioned the portrait in his diary in August 1931, while he was staying in Baden Baden, Germany, with his son Patrick [9205] to recover from his first heart attack: “we sat down in the open – to take coffee... hardly did we set – when lady Milford Haven [3498], the wife of the former prince Louis Battenberg [3464] – joined us – bright talkative as usual – telling me that just today in the morning the wedding took place of her granddaughter Theodora daughter of Princess Alice (who since a year is in a lunatic asilum [sic])! Theodora is very lovely – I painted her portrait some four year ago – which was burnt when they had a fire in their house at St Cloud – about two years ago  - she Lady M. H. – explained us that the prince of Baden [the groom] – is the last surviving son of the famous max v. Baden – (whom I met already in 1898 when painting portraits at the Court in berlin) Patrick told us – that he was with him at Oxford. Many of the German Royal families were present amongst them Queen Sophia of Greece – who just last Friday visited me in my studio – strange that Lady M. H. leaving [sic living] on the family were sitting alone badly dressed poor looking amongst the [indistinct] – taking her coffee – Her brother the former grand Duke of Hesse was also at the wedding – but have left – I did not see him – since I painted him in Darmstadt in 1906 [5937] - & last in 1907 at Windsor – Garden Party – while chatting with her – Her daughter Louise [3481] – the Crown-Princess of Sweden – came with her Lady. poor princess. she look[s] so old & ugly - & badly dressed – but a nice woman – strange their life at present!”^[4]

Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark was born 30 May 1906 at the Tatoi Palace, the daughter of Prince Andrew, son of King George I of Greece and his wife Princess Alice of Battenberg. She married Prince Berthold, Margrave of Baden (1906-63) 7 August 1931 at Neues Schloss, Baden-Baden, in Germany. There were three children of the marriage: Max (born 1933), Ludwig (born 1937) and Margarita (born 1932). The sitter died 16 October 1969 in Büdingen, Hesse.

EXHIBITED:

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., May-June 1929 (first hang), no. 16

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., July 1929 (second hang), no. 32

LITERATURE:

•“From a Famous Painter’s Exhibition: Portraits by de Laszlo,” Illustrated London News, 25 May 1929, p. 908, ill.

•Vickers, Hugo, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece, London, 2000, pp. 197, 198

•DLA123-0049, letter from Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark to de László, 8 January 1928

•DLA123-0155, letter from Princess of Greece to de László, 4 April 1929

•DLA 1930 parcel, Soràt?, 18 January 1930, ill.

•DLA115-0048, letter from Princess Nicholas of Greece to de László, 16 April 1931  

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection, 17 August entry, p. 233

KF 2017