110923

Baron Alfons Mumm von Schwarzenstein  1903

Half-length slightly to the right, full-face looking beyond the viewer, wearing a fur-collared greatcoat over court dress; the Order of the Red Eagle around his neck with the Cross of a Knight of the Order of St. John (Johanniterorden), the sash of an unidentified order across his chest

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed upper right: PHILIPPUS ALPHONSUS LIBER BARO / MUMM DE SCHWARZENSTEIN / GERM. IMPER.LEGAT. EXTRAORD./ ET MIN. PLENIPOT. APUD  SINAS / VINDOBONAE / MDCCCCIII / 10 MART. [Phillip Alphons Freiherr Mumm von Schwarzenstein / German Imperial Special Envoy / and Minister Plenipotentiary to China / Vienna / 1903 / 10 March]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 63: Freiherr Mumm von Schwarzenstein / 6.III 1903

Studio Inventory, p. 148 (74): Baron Mumm

Alfons Mumm von Schwarzenstein was born in Frankfurt am Main on 19 March 1859, the son of Hermann Mumm von Schwarzenstein (1816-1887), the head of the Champagne house G.H.Mumm & Co in Reims and P.A.Mumm in Frankfurt, and his wife Eugenie, née Lutteroth (1822-1888). He was educated in Frankfurt and then studied law and cameralia at the universities of Göttingen, Leipzig, Heidelberg and Berlin, obtaining his law degree in 1882. He went into the diplomatic service, with postings in London, Paris, Washington, Bucharest and the Vatican, before being appointed Minister to Luxembourg in 1898. In 1901 he was appointed German Minister to China, as successor to Baron Klemens von Ketteler, murdered during the Boxer Rebellion and in this capacity he was one of the signatories of the Boxer Protocol ending the uprising.

In 1903, the year of this portrait, he was made a Freiherr (Baron) of the Kingdom of Prussia and published his Tagebuch in Bildern [Diary in Pictures]. From 1906 to 1911 he was Ambassador in Tokyo and in 1918 was Ambassador in Kiev to the short-lived post-Revolution Ukrainian republic. On 9 December of that year, aged fifty-nine and despite his homosexuality, he married Jeannie Mackay-Watt from Glasgow (1866-c.1949). Following his retirement they lived at Castello San Giorgio, above Portofino, which he had bought and restored before the First World War. He died there on 10 July 1924. During the Second World War his widow remained in Portofino and saved the castle from destruction by German troops.

The artist made a preparatory sketch for the present portrait which remained in his studio on his death [6373]. The sitter’s niece, Emma von Grunelius, née Mumm von Schwarzenstein [110615], was painted by de László in 1907.

PROVENANCE:

Sold K&K Auktionen, Heidelberg, Germany, 18 May 2018, lot 144

EXHIBITED:         

•Salon Pisko, Vienna, Exhibition of Hungarian Art, April 1903

•Berlin, Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung, 1904, no. 645

LITERATURE:        

•Hevesi, Ludwig, “Ungarische Kunst in Wien”, Pester Lloyd, 9 April 1903 [page unknown]

•Művészet, December 1913, p. 367, ill.

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, n°106, Ph A. von László, Bielefeld and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 28

•DLA090-0225, German press cutting, Pester Lloyd, 9 April 1903

•DLA090-0259, German press cutting, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 9 April 1903

•DLA162-0020, Pesti hirlap, 1 May 1904

CWS 2008