3786

Comtesse Georges de Castellane, née Florinda Fernández Anchorena 1930

Seated three-quarter length to the left on a gilt upholstered armchair, looking full face to the viewer, wearing a white silk halter neck evening dress with a flounced skirt, lavender blue sash and a blue chiffon stole, a collar bracelet of diamonds round her left wrist, drop earrings and a long necklace with a pendant, holding a white feather fan in her left hand on her lap, her right hand on the arm of the chair

Oil on canvas, 122 x 91.5 cm (48 x 36 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1930 / Paris   

Sitters’ Book II, f. 66: Comtesse Georges de Castellane. / October 1930

Private Collection

De László’s association with the de Castellane family dated back to 1899, when he first painted comte [3762] and comtesse Jean de Castellane [3769] near Langeais, in the Touraine region. A contemporary photograph shows that at the time he also met Jean’s eldest brother, the dandy marquis Boniface de Castellane, father of Georges de Castellane, known as ‘Boni’ to the society of the Belle Epoque. Boni’s young new wife Yvonne Patenôtre was also painted by de László in 1922 [3787].

In turn, Georges de Castellane commissioned the present portrait of his Argentine wife Florinda. In May 1930 de László was in Paris painting the portraits of Mme. Jules Patenotre [6570] and her son Raymond [6573]. They were the mother and brother of Georges’ sister-in-law Yvonne. After seeing the portrait of Mme. Patenotre, Georges inquired as to de László’s honorarium for a portrait of his wife. The artist’s secretary indicated that a portrait of the size of that of Madame Patenotre would be ₤700, or a three-quarter length sitting or standing, ₤1,500, but that, “as the Countess would be such an interesting sitter, he would make an exception and do the portrait for ₤1300.”^[1] Sittings had to be postponed from the summer of 1930 to October that year because of de László’s busy schedule and the de Castellane’s summer plans. Nevertheless, as early as June 1930, the artist left remarkably precise instructions as to what he wanted the Countess to wear: “I enclose a little drawing which I hope will be sufficient for the dressmaker. It should be a Nattier blue, very fine velvet with a sheen, as you will find in pictures by Nattier and Fragonard. I should like to have round the jacket a very narrow, let us say, an inch and a quarter wide border of ermine, cut exactly as you see in the drawing. I hope the Countess will like it.”^[2] On 10 September 1930, comte Georges de Castellane wrote to de László: “Many thanks for your kind letter informing me that you expect to start painting my wife’s portrait on the 5th or 6th of October- […] I will see that the little blue Nattier coat be ready then.”^[3]

The finished portrait, however, shows that the Nattier blue jacket was eventually not used for the work, whilst the artist’s appointment book reveals that sittings only started in the afternoon of 11 October. As favoured by de László, consecutive sittings took place in the afternoon of 13 October, and between 14th and 18th, Florinda sat to him morning and afternoon. Hers was the last portrait the artist painted in Paris that year.^[4]

De László must have been particularly satisfied with the result, as he exhibited it at his large retrospective at the Hôtel Jean Charpentier in 1931, and at the Paris Salon in 1933, alongside that of Graziella de Ortiz-Linares [6875].

Florinda Fernández Anchorena was born on 24 June 1901 in Buenos Aires, to Juan Antonio Fernández Torres (1864-1940) and his wife Rosa Irene de Anchorena Aguirre (1869-1941). She was the youngest of four children and had two brothers and a sister. She was known by the affectionate nickname, Chittah.^[5] Her father inherited vast estancias and wealth in the northern Argentine province of Salta. He and his wife, of the patrician and land-owning family^[6] of Nepomuceno Anchorena Arana and Josefa Aguirre Ibáñez, ordered the construction of a large residence in Buenos Aires, designed by the French architect Edouard Le Monnier.^[7] Although the palace, commissioned in 1907, was completed in 1909, the family never lived there because they made Paris their permanent residence after Juan Antonio suffered an accident during a European tour, leaving him paralysed.^[8] The family never returned to a permanent residence in Argentina, although they maintained strong links with both Buenos Aires and the Province of Salta.

Florinda, like many daughters of wealthy Argentine families attracted by the intense cultural and fashionable life of Paris, mingled with the French social élite. On 9 May 1923 in Paris, she married comte Georges de Castellane (1897-1944),^[9] second son of Boniface, comte and marquis de Castellane (1867-1932) and the American heiress, Anna Gould Miller (1878-1961). There was one daughter of the marriage, Diane (born 1927). In 1936, the couple settled in the magnificent ground floor of the 18th century Hôtel de Castries, rue de Varenne in Paris, which they furnished with their Sèvres porcelain collection and fine Louis XVI furniture. In 1944, Georges de Castellane died in a plane accident in Brazil. The comtesse de Castellane never remarried, and died in Paris half a century later, in 1995.

EXHIBITED:

•Hôtel Jean Charpentier, Paris, Exposition P.A. László, June 1931, no. 32

•Paris, Salon de la société des artistes français, 1933, no. 1450

LITERATURE:              

•Salon de la société des artistes français, catalogue, Paris, 1933, p. 70, ill. p. 67

•Tatler Magazine, 12 December 1934, no.  1746, ill. p. 497

•Chaleyssin, Patrick, La peinture mondaine de 1870 à 1960, Celia Editions, 1993, ill., frontispiece and dust cover (detail)

•Dodero, Albert and Philippe Cros, 1889-1939 ARGENTINA, The Golden Years, El Ateneo, Buenos Aires, 2007, p. 275, ill.

•László, Philip de, 1930 appointment book, private collection

•DLA064-0086, letter from de László’s secretary to M. le Comte de Castellane, 18 May 1930

•DLA064-0080, letter from de László to Georges de Castellane, 16 June 1930
•DLA064-0078, letter from Georges de Castellane to de László, 10 September 1930

•DLA 1931 parcel, Paris, June 1931, p. 57, ill

•DLA 1933 parcel, Salon, 1933, p. 67, ill

•DLA 1933 parcel, L’Illustration, 13 May 1933, ill.

SMdeL 2011