110804

UNTRACED
Doctor Albert Berzeviczy 1904
Seated half-length to the left in three-quarter profile, his left elbow on the armrest of the chair, left hand to his chin, wearing a black three-piece suit and wing collar with dark, tie
Oil [support and dimensions unknown]
Inscribed lower right: László F E / 1904

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 14: Berzeviczy Albert

This portrait was painted soon after the sitter’s appointment 3 November 1903 as Minister of Education in the cabinet of Prime Minister Count István Tisza. He succeeded Gyula Wlassics [110810] in the post. Soon after, de László’s close friend Gábor de Térey [11881], Chief Curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, wrote to the artist: “The Arts expect much from Berzeviczy. He is a cultivated man who will take a special interest in art and who wants to get personally engaged everywhere … On Saturday is the opening of the Winter Exhibition and the artists want to give Berzeviczy an ovation.”^[1]

Albert Berzeviczy de Berzevicze et Kakaslomnicz was born 7 June 1853 at Berzevicze in the county of Sáros,^[2] the son of Teodor Berzeviczy, a landowner, and his wife, Amália Szinyei Merse, aunt of the famous painter Pál Szinyei Merse (1845-1920). Berzeviczy’s family could trace their origins to the early thirteenth century. He was educated at the Law Academy of Kassa and at the University of Budapest. In 1878 he was appointed as professor at the Law Academy of Eperjes in his home county.^[3] In 1881 he became a Member of Parliament and from 1887 to 1894 he served as Under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Education. From 1903 to 1905 he was Minister of Education and from 1910-1911 Speaker of the Lower House.

He was a man of wide cultural interests. His published works include The Painting and Sculpture of the Cinquecento (1906), a biography of Queen Beatrix (1908),^[4] Landscape Painting in the 17th Century (1910), The Supernatural in the Dramas of Shakespeare (1910) and The Age of Absolutism in Hungary (in 4 volumes, 1921-1937). In 1913 he served as President of the Hungarian Olympic Committee. From 1905 to 1936 he was President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and a Member of the Upper House of Parliament from 1917. From 1923 he was President of the Kisfaludy Society^[5] and from 1932 he was President of the Hungarian Pen Club. In 1930 he was awarded the recently established Corvin Chain, the highest Hungarian distinction given for literary or artistic merit. (De László was awarded the Corvin Badge just before his death in November 1937. The Badge was equivalent to the chain, but was awarded to foreign nationals and de László had been a British Citizen since 1914.)

The diarist Zsigmond Justh, who met the sitter in 1889, described him as one of the cleverest men in the ministries of the government but a rather cold and distant personality with a tendency to lecture. His wife, Zsófia Kuzmik, was described by Justh as “diligent, caring and sensible.”^[6] They had a daughter, Lilian ‘Lily’, later Baroness Ernő Schell (1880-1956). She wrote to de László in January 1904 thanking him for “the nice and valuable sketch - which is already hanging in my room.” On the reverse of the letter de László wrote “nagy örömömre” [to my great pleasure]. The sketch is untraced and may have been a preparatory sketch for the present portrait.^[7]

Doctor Berzeviczy died in Budapest on 22 March 1936.

EXHIBITED:
•Hungarian Fine Art Society Tavaszi kiállítás (Spring Exhibition), Budapest, 1903-1904, no. 31, ill.
•Nemzeti Szalon (National Salon), Budapest, 1907, no. 91
•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society Spring Exhibition and Retrospectives of Philip de László, Mihály Munkácsy, János Pentelei Molnár, Samu Petz and László Hűvös, 4 May – 30 June 1925 [Műcsarnok, Országos Magyar Képzőművészeti Társulat, Budapest, Tavaszi kiállítás és László Fülöp, Munkácsy Mihály, Pentelei Molnár János, valamit Petz Samu és Hűvös László összegyűjtött műveinek kiállítása, 1925. május 4 – június 30.], no. 16

LITERATURE:
•Justh, Zsigmond, Hazai napló [Home Diary], 1889, entry for 31 March, in: Justh Zsigmond naplója és levelei [The Diary and Letters of Zsigmond Justh], Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, Budapest, pp. 355-356
•Művészet, January 1904, ill. frontispiece
•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, p. 283

•DLA066-0101, letter from Gábor Térey to de László, 10 November 1903
•DLA066-0055, letter from Lily Berzeviczy to de László, 9 January 1904



CWS & Pd’O  2019