111005

Pauline Leon, Marquise de Laborde, née Pauline de Rafelis de Saint Sauveur 1924

Seated three-quarter length turned slightly to the left and looking full face to the viewer, wearing a grey silk dress with a lilac patterned and fur edged stole with a grey silk scarf and a long, double strand of pearls around her neck, two pearl bracelets and a large diamond ring on her left hand, both hands resting in her lap

Oil on canvas, 109 x 81 cm (43 x 32 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / Paris / 1924 / X

Sitters’ Book II, f. 42: Saint Sauveur Laborde / 8 Octobre 1924

Private Collection

The present portrait is referred to in a letter from the 12th duc de Gramont to de László, in which he mentions portraits which de László had executed recently in Paris and left in the studio at Gramont’s house in the avenue Henri Martin: “All your portraits are gone except Pauline de Laborde; she left here till she goes in her new flat.”^[1]Her painting was among the five portraits de László completed in Paris in late September and early October 1924, these included Princess Elisabeta of Romania [3273] and her sister-in-law, Princess Helen of Romania [3273].

The sitter was born Pauline de Rafelis de Saint Sauveur in Paris on 18 November 1876, the daughter of Paul Marie Raymond de Rafelis de Saint Sauveur (1839-1884) and Henriette Sidonie de Gontaut-Biron (1851-1933). She married Felix Alexandre Jean Leon, Marquis de Laborde (1877-1966) on 24 May 1924 in Paris. She died in Paris on 30 May 1954 aged 77.^[2]

PROVENANCE:

Sold Sotheby’s, 27 September 2012, lot 304;

Sold Christie's South Kensington, 26 November 2014, lot 80

Offered Christie's, London, 16 December 2021, lot 95

LITERATURE:

•DLA015-0088, letter from the 12th duc de Gramont to de László, 23 November 1924

KF 2014