6876

Albina Rodríguez de Patiño , née Albina Rodríguez Ocampo 1930

Seated three-quarter length slightly to the left on an upholstered gilt armchair, her head turned looking full face to the viewer, wearing a black gown trimmed with white lace around the neckline and on the sleeves, emerald drop earrings, an elaborate three-strand pearl and emerald necklace with large emerald pendants, and a wide jewelled bracelet on her left wrist, holding a fan in both hands on her lap, a gold and blue brocade curtain behind her to the left

Oil on canvas, 130.5 x 98.5 cm (51 ½  x 38 ¾ in.)

Inscribed top right: de László / 1930   

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 54: A de Patiño / Paris 17 de Mayo 1930

Private Collection

This portrait of Albina Rodríguez de Patiño was painted by de László in Paris in May 1930, in his studio in rue Jean Goujon. The artist had already painted the sitter’s daughter Graziella de Ortiz Linares in 1928 [6875], and it was agreed that he would paint the portrait of Albina’s husband Simón Iturri Patiño, as a pendant to hers, in October 1930.^[1] In all, between 1928 and 1931, de László painted eight portraits of the Patiño family.

On 27 May 1930, when de László’s wife Lucy joined him in Paris, she recorded her impression of Albina de Patiño: “P[hilip] staying at Continental – I got ready & was with P. at  31 rue Jean Goujon at 12.30 – He was painting Mde: Patino. She is mother of Mde Merito [13322], a Bolivian & v. like Szerena P’s sister [8604] – what she (S) must have been when young.”^[2] Lucy did not indicate when the portrait was completed, but on 24 June 1930  Simón Patiño  wrote to de László (in French) :  “And I am very happy to tell you that the portrait of Mrs Patiño has won the unanimous admiration of all of those who have seen it, and in particular family members.” ^[3] and on 27 June de László  replied (also in French)  “It was truly a great pleasure to read your appreciative letter about the portrait of Mrs Patiño whose sympathetic personality was for me a great joy to paint.”^[4] 

It is known from the artist’s 1931 diary^[5] how well de László came to know the family and how welcome he felt at the Patiño home, no. 32 Avenue Foch, almost next door to that of their daughter. On the 4 February 1931 the artist wrote: “I feel happy in the family – they show me real esteem.”^[6] 

Copies of the present portrait and its pair were made by the Spanish artist, Enrique Segura Iglesias.^[7] 

Albina Rodríguez Ocampo was born about 1873 in Oruro, Bolivia, the daughter of Tomás Rodríguez and his wife Epifanía Ocampo. On 1 May 1889 she married the tin magnate Simón Iturri Patiño (1860-1947). They had five children: two sons, René (born c. 1892), and Antenor (born 1896), and three daughters, Graziella (born 1895), Elena (born 1902) and Luz Mila (born 1909). Albina was a supportive wife to her industrious husband: during his first visit to Europe in 1909, where he had travelled alone to set up an administrative office in Hamburg, she cabled him telling him to come home at once as a local Bolivian court had ruled against him in favour of a rival company, requiring Patiño to relinquish his most important mine La Salvadora^[8] and pay considerable compensation. During the 30 days of his return voyage home, she herself engaged lawyers, who succeeded in persuading a higher court to overrule this judgement.^[9]

Albina Rodríguez soon accompanied her husband on his foreign business trips. From 1912 they divided their time between Europe and Bolivia, later living from 1922 to 1926 in Madrid and, from 1927 to 1938, in Paris, where Patiño served as Bolivia’s Minister Plenipotentiary. The serious heart attack which Patiño suffered in 1924 meant that he could not return to Bolivia on account of the altitude. However, he built two large homes there for the family: the Palacio Portales^[10] in Cochabamba, designed by the French architect Eugène Bliault, and a second great mansion, outside the city, the Villa Albina, constructed between 1925 and 1932 for his wife’s use on her visits home. After their lengthy stay in Paris, they moved to New York at the start of the Second World War and finally to Argentina, where Patiño died in 1947.

The sitter died in Paris on 27 March 1953 and was buried in the family mausoleum at the Villa Albina, Cochamba, Bolivia.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

LITERATURE:

•Vecko Journalen^[11], April 1933, p. 16, ill.

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 222

•DLA081-0175, letter from Simón I. Patiño de László, 24 June 1930

•DLA081-0175, letter from de László to Simón I. Patiño, 27 June 1930

SMdeL  2011