5617
Monsignor Count Péter Vay[1] 1904
Seated three-quarter length, in three-quarter profile to the right, wearing a purple biretta and purple clerical robes covered partly by a red cloak, wearing the ribbon and star of the Spanish Order of King Charles III[2]. and other decorations, holding his pectoral cross in his left hand which is raised to his chest and holding a small book in his right, both arms resting on the carved wooden chair in which he sits, red hangings behind
Oil on canvas, 115 x 93.3 cm (45 ½ x 36 ½ in.)
Inscribed lower left: László F.E. / 1904 / XII [incised into paint]
Inscribed top right: MGR. COMES. VAY DE VAYA. / PROTONOTARIUS. APOSTOLICUS. / ANNO DOMINI. MIXCIV.
Sitters' Book I, f. 33: Mgr. de Vay [together with inscription and signature of Vilmos Fraknói and signature of Ferenc Kollányi, dated Rome, 9 February 1900][3]
Sitters' Book I, f. 67: Vay de Vaya / [in the artist's hand: 1904 / Vienna]
Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin
In a diary entry written in 1935[4] the artist recalled that he first met Count Vay thirty-nine years earlier (i.e. around 1896) in the literary salon of Janka Wohl in Budapest.[5] When he travelled to Rome in 1900 to paint Pope Leo XIII [4509] he met the sitter again, who was then Apostolic Protonotary in the Vatican.[6]
In 1904 Count Vay wrote to the artist, asking him to paint his portrait: “I recently heard from Bishop Fr. that you are staying in Vienna ... I would be delighted to become the sitter whom you were once kind enough to ask to sit for you.”[7] With a touch of vanity (a feature of his personality which the artist remarked on many years later[8]) Count Vay added that: “the purple robes of a prelate will be more artistic, and also now after the lectures I gave this Easter in London and Paris, the sitter will be better known.” The portrait was an outstanding success. Between 1905 and 1911 it was exhibited 13 times in six different countries. When shown in Paris in 1905 it was instrumental in gaining the Legion d'Honneur for the artist, and it won a gold medal at the exhibition in Barcelona in 1911.[9] It was reproduced in colour in E. A. Seemann's Meister der Farbe.[10] Gábor Térey,[11] the art historian and friend of de László, described the portrait as a high-watermark in the artist's oeuvre, adding that: “drapery plays a great part in this picture; the artist has been able to revel in purples and reds, displaying the most delicate gradation of tones in the fold of the material. All is painted with freshness and mellowness, and with a breadth and certainty which denote the great artist.”[12] In von Schleinitz’s 1913 monograph on de László, he remarked on the beauty of the colouring of this portrait and regarded it as the artist's most important work of 1904.[13] De László kept the painting in his studio until 1923 when it was lent to the newly created Dublin Municipal Gallery of Art (now the Hugh Lane) and donated to the gallery the following year.
Throughout his life, de László continued to correspond with Count Vay[14] and his diaries show that, despite some remarks about his sitter's vanity and worldliness, the artist had a lasting affection for him. He painted Count Vay again in 1906 [5624] and in 1935 [5626]; both portraits are in the collection of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. There exists also a portrait drawing of the sitter [5619], which was probably done at the same time as the present portrait[15].
Monsignor Count Péter Vay de Vaja et Luskod was born at Gyón (now Dabas, in the county of Pest) on 26 September 1864, the youngest of four children[16]of Count László Vay de Vaja et Luskod (1823-1884), and his wife Sarolta Beniczky de Benicze et Micsinye (1837-1913).[17] His father was Főispán (Lord Lieutenant) of the county of Máramaros and Lord Chamberlain to the household of Archduke József. Vay was educated at the Piarist Gymnasium in Budapest and attended universities in Germany, France and England. In 1893, having served five years in the diplomatic service, he enrolled in the Gregorian University in Rome to study theology and philosophy. He was named Privy Chamberlain to Pope Leo XIII in 1895 and was sent on a mission to Spain in 1896.[18] In 1897 he was a member of Pope Leo XIII's delegation to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. He was ordained a priest at Esztergom in 1898, and appointed Apostolic Protonotary shortly afterwards.
In 1908 Count Vay became Abbot of St Martin[19]and in 1917 was appointed Titular Bishop of Skopje.[20] During the first decade of the twentieth century he travelled extensively to visit Roman Catholic missions in China, Japan and Korea. He regarded Korea as the most receptive to Christian missionary work. He also travelled in the United States where he met President Roosevelt, and in Russia, where he met Tsar Nicholas II. In 1906 he wrote to Mrs. de László: “I have many messages for the Master, and hope he will accept later to paint the family of the Tsar. I am so anxious to arrange it as long as there is a Tsar.”[21] Count Vay was also a prolific author, whose publications include: The Emperors and the Empires of the East (1906), The Art and Aesthetics of the East (1908), British Industry and Applied Arts (1908), To America in an Immigrant Ship (1908), Extracts from an American Diary (1910). His works were translated into English, German and French.[22] In 1907 Count Albert Apponyi,[23] who was then Minister of Education, provided funds for Count Vay to purchase Japanese art during his travels. This material, together with his own large collection which he donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, later formed the nucleus of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of East Asian Art, established in Budapest in 1919.
In 1917 he was appointed Imperial and Royal Privy Councillor by King Charles IV. After the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at the end of the First World War, Count Vay retired to the Carmelite Covent of Leopoldau, near Vienna. In 1924 he moved to a monastery in Assisi. During the last three decades of his life he completely retired from public life.[24] He died in Assisi on 28 February 1948.
PROVENANCE:
Presented by the artist to the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1924
EXHIBITED:
•Venice Biennale, April 1905, Hall XVII, no. 11
•Paris, Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, 1906, no. 942
•Galerie des Artistes modernes, Les Onze, Paris, March 1907
•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, László Fülöp műveinek gyűjteményes kiállítása [Exhibition of Works by László Fülöp], April 1907, no. 55
•Cannes Salon, 1907
•The Fine Art Society, London, Portrait Paintings and Drawings by Philip A. László, May and June, 1907, no. 45
•Brussels, Exposition Générale des Beaux-Arts, 1907, no. 282
•Dowdeswell Galleries, London, An Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. László, June and July 1908, no. 38
•The Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, Autumn Exhibition, 1908, no. 145
•Royal Society of British Artists, Winter Exhibition, 1908, no. 44
•Künstlerhaus, Salzburg, Twenty-fifth Annual Exhibition, 1909, no. 109
•Birmingham, Exhibition of the Royal Society of Artists, 1910, no. 155
•Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Annual Exhibition, 1910, no. 214
•Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, Sixth Exposición Internacional de Arte, 1911, no. 711
•Künstlerhaus, Thirty-Seventh Annual Exhibition, Vienna, March 1912, no.79
LITERATURE:
•VI. Espozizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia, Carlo Ferrari, Venice, 1905, p. 27, ill.
•Nemzeti Szalon: László Fülöp művei, Légrády Testvérek, Budapest, 1907, p. 19, ill.
•Vasárnapi Újság, vol.54, issue 15, Budapest, 14 April 1907, p. 293, ill.
•Meister der Farbe, E. A. Seemann, Leipzig
•Térey ,Gabriel von, A Hungarian Portait Painter: Philip A. László. The Studio, Vol. XXXI, No. 124 (June 1907), pp. 254-267
•Museum: Revista Mensual de Arte Español Antiguo y Moderno y de la Vida Artistica Contamporanea, 1913, 3rd year, number 8, p. 297, ill.
•Schleinitz, O. von, Künstler Monographien Nr. 106: Ph. A. von László. Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld und Leipzig, 1913, pp. 77-80, ill.p.54, pl. 62.
•László, Philip de, June- November 1935 diary, private collection, entries for 9 September (p. 106) and 12 September (p. 109)
•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, pp. 188, 224
•Buzinkay, Péter, Főpapi műgyűjtőink a modern kor hajnalán (1895-1924) [Prelates as Art Collectors at the Beginning of the Modern Age, 1895-1924], In: Magyar egyháztörténeti vázlatok [Essays in Church History in Hungary], Ed. Gáspár Csóka, METEM, Pannonhalma - Budapest, 2008 /1-2, pp. 53-56, ill. p. 61.
•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László : His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, pp. 39, 64, 90
•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 63
•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 134, ill. p. 84
•Field, Katherine, Philip Alexius de László; 150th Anniversary Exhibition, de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 19
•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 39
•DLA087-0069, letter from Count Vay to de László, 15 August 1904
•DLA039-0087, letter from Count Vay to de László, 24 December 1904
•DLA162-0468, Pesti Hírlap, 28 February 1905, p. 8
•DLA162-0448, Pesti Hírlap, 27 August 1905, p. 4
•DLA087-0062, letter from Count Vay to Mrs. Philip de László, 24 July 1906
•DLA066-0100, letter from Gábor Térey to de László, 5 October 1906
•DLA087-0067, letter from Count Vay to de László, 20 October 1906
•DLA162-0238, Pesti Hírlap, 14 November 1906, p. 9
•DLA066-0095, letter from Gábor Térey to de László, 3 December 1906
•DLA162-0102, Pesti Hírlap, 7 April 1907, p. 7
•DLA162-0064, Pesti Hírlap, 4 May 1907, p. 10
•DLA087-0065, letter from Count Vay to de László, 18 October 1907
•DLA093-0089, press cutting, Dublin Evening Herald, 28 July 1923
•DLA109-0133, letter from Arthur Quigley to de László, 4 August 1923
•DLA116-0027, letter from Count Vay to de László, 29 February 1924
•DLA024-0351, letter from de László to Count Vay, 4 August 1936
We are grateful to Dr. Gergely Pál Sallay of the Hadtörténeti Múzeum (Museum of Military History), Budapest, for identifying the Spanish decoration of the sitter.
Pd'O 2014
[1] His full title in Hungarian is Monsignor vajai és luskodi gróf Vay Péter.
[2] The grade consisting of a neck badge and star is entitled "Commander by Number".
[3] When the artist was in Rome in 1900 to paint Pope Leo XIII. The inscription reads: A művészet legnagyobb alkotásainak / színhelyén hazafiúi rokonérzéssel/ üdvözlik (At the scene of the greatest creations of art, we greet you with patriotic camaraderie). Bishop Fraknói [5120] was de László's patron who arranged for the artist to paint the Pope. Ferenc Kollányi (1863-1933) was Abbot of Ják and a historian.
[4] László, Philip de, 1935 diary (June-November), op. cit., 9 September entry, p. 106
[5] Janka Wohl (1846-1901) with her sister Stefánia (1848-1889) kept a literary salon in Budapest in the late 19th century which was attended by many well known writers, artists and intellectuals. De László met several of his early sitters there.
[6] A member of the highest non-episcopal college of prelates in the Roman Curia.
[7] DLA087-0069, op. cit.
[8] László, Philip de, 1935 diary (June – November), op. cit., 12 September entry, p. 109
[9] Schleinitz, op. cit., p. 80.
[10] Ibid, p. 80; E. A. Seemann's Meister der Farbe ("Masters of Colour") was a series published in Leipzig
[11] Gábor Térey (1864-1927), Director of the Old Masters' Department of the Museum of Fine Arts 1904-1926; painted by de László in 1907 [11881]
[12] Térey, G., op. cit.
[13] Schleinitz, op. cit., pp. 77, 79
[14] De László's last known letter to the sitter (DLA024-0351) is dated 4 August 1936, just over a year before the artist's death.
[15] For two destroyed paintings of the sitter see Studio Inventory, p. 23 (131 rev.): Monseigneur Count Vay de Vaya Luskod three-quarter face head and shoulders sketch - 39½ x 29" - Carton/ unsigned - The Trustees - This Hungarian nobleman, intended for a diplomatic career, entered the Church and is now Lord Abbot of St. Martin, Florence., and p.89 (489): Monseigneur Le Comte Vay de Vaya Luskod, Lord Abbot of St. Martin. - 36 x 28'' - Canvas rolled - The Trustees - Re-stretched 1938
[16] Two of his older siblings died in infancy. His sister Sarolta (1859-1918) was a writer and journalist; her collected works were published in 10 volumes in 1909. She was transsexual and adopted male attire, called herself Sándor, and went through a form of marriage with a woman. Her detailed case history was published anonymously in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's famous psychiatric textbook, Psychpathia Sexualis (see the English translation of 12th German edition of 1902, Bloat, Burbank, California, 1999, pp. 352-361 (case 166). The case history states that Sarolta was brought up as a boy, while her brother (the sitter), four years younger, was brought up as a girl until he started higher school at the age of 15.
[17] The Vay de Vaja are an old Hungarian family who claim descent from Voja, a pagan christened together with St Stephen , the first King of Hungary, in 994 A.D. They are first mentioned in documents in the late 13th century. A branch of the family were created barons in the late 18th century, while another branch from which the sitter descends were created counts in 1830, with the additional title of de Luskod.
[18] DLA093-0089, op. cit. According to de László, Count Vay's mission was to present the Golden Rose of Virtue to Maria Christina, Queen Regent of Spain (1858-1929), sent to her by Pope Leo XIII. It was on this occasion that the sitter was awarded the Spanish decoration he is seen wearing in the present portrait.
[19] He was given the benefice of Vaska-Szentmárton, now Felsőszentmárton, in the Diocese of Pécs, in Baranya county, south-western Hungary.
[20] Now the capital of Macedonia (formerly Üsküb)
[21] DLA087-0062, op. cit. Although de László painted nearly all the crowned heads of Europe, a commission to paint the Tsar never materialised.
[22] A number of his works have been re-published recently in English.
[23] Count Albert Apponyi (1846-1934) was painted by de László on several occasions (see [2596]).
[24] In a letter to de László from Leopoldau in 1924, he writes: "The day I was sentenced in my absence by the Bolsheviks, I ceased to exist to this earthly world" (DLA116-0027, op. cit.). The Hungarian Soviet Republic and its regime of terror lasted from 19 March to 1 August 1919. As a priest and an aristocrat, Count Vay would have been in danger of his life.