4236

Study portrait

Count László Széchényi 1931

Half-length to the right, full face, wearing Hungarian díszmagyar, a dark cloak over a white shirt, a green sash, a black hat decorated with a large jewelled and plumed pin, an eye patch over his left eye and holding a ceremonial sword in his left hand

Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1 cm (36 x 28 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1931. XII. Washington.

Laib (364) / C31 (16): Unidentified man

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 71: Széchényi László 1931 December 15

Private Collection, on loan to The Preservation Society of Newport County

De László made his fourth visit to the United States in October 1931 and, such was the demand for his portraits, he stayed until April 1932. This study portrait was completed in two sittings, 14-15 December, in de László’s temporary studio at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The portrait was a Christmas gift from the artist to his fellow Hungarian, who he had first met when he painted Count Széchényi’s wife in 1921 [4238].

De László was invited to spend Christmas Eve with the family and he recorded the visit in his diary: “drove to the Széchényis for the Xmas tree – The whole household came in & the officers of the Legation – the daughters sung! & a very fine Hung[arian] pianist played very well...my portrait of him – in Hung- national dress hung & was a great happiness to her – it is my Xmas portrait.”^[1]  The artist also painted two of the sitter’s daughters, Ferdinandine [4239] in 1927 and Sylvia [4244], also painted in December 1931.

Count László Széchényi was born 18 February 1879, in Horpács, just north of Budapest, son of Count Imre Széchényi (1825-1898) and his wife Countess Alexandra Sztáray-Szirmay. The  Széchényi family were one of the oldest and wealthiest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Count Imre served as Confidential Councillor to the Emperor Franz Joseph [12700] and Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Germany. The sitter married 27 January 1908, Gladys Moore Vanderbilt (1886-1965), daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife Alice Gwynne at the family home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. They spent their early married life in America and Hungary, where the sitter owned two great estates: Őrmező Castle in the County of Zemplén and a summer palace in the County of Somogy. There were five daughters of the marriage: Cornelia (born 1908), Alice (born 1911), Gladys (born 1913), Sylvia (born 1918) and Ferdinandine (born 1923).

Count Széchényi was appointed Royal Hungarian Minister to Washington, D.C. in 1921, a post he held until 1933. Time Magazine reported in 1929 that: “the Count & Countess Szechenyi enjoy a Washington popularity second only to that of the British Howards [Sir Esme Howard, Ambassador to the United States, and his wife]. Their summers alternate between Newport where the Countess’s mother, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Sr., resides grandly at ‘The Breakers,’ and the Count’s estates in Hungary. On his last trip home, the Count had a bad automobile accident, suffered the loss of his left eye. Light-hearted despite this, he still rides and drives his car, plays his ‘fair’ game of golf. In Washington the Szechenyis take their social and diplomatic duties most seriously.”^[2] Another contemporary author described him as: “swash-buckling Count Laszlo Szechenyi, one-eyed minister of Hungary. Clad in black velvet, black boots, black patch over his eye, gold spurs, white aigret in his hussar’s cap, he swished through the Blue Room [of the White House, Washington, D.C.], the former Gladys Vanderbilt on his arm.”^[3] 

Count Széchényi was appointed Hungarian Minister to the Court of St James’s in 1933 and he and his family moved to London. The artist noted his frustration with Hungary’s choice of diplomats in his diary: “poor Hungary still sending her degenerate haughty Counts & Barons abroad – instead to select the right people – just now at such serious hours – If Horthy [5684] would know the advers[e] feeling Széchényi has against him – Széchényi is out for King Otto – The Habsburges [sic] who’s [sic] family for centuries humiliated Hungary & their aristocrat warming themselves under the Habsburg umbrella – They want a Count – dress up & look down on the people – But Széchényi will be so fare [sic, i.e. “far] better than the last – that idiotic Szapáry [6] & Zichy [111030] – that his American wife is a perfect Lady & has much money – will well [indistinct] in London & bring some knowledge of Hungarian existence in the British people’s mind.”^[4]

The sitter was also interested in wireless technology and is credited with inventing submarine wireless telegraphy, which enabled communication underwater. He founded the Submarine Wireles Company in 1912 to manufacture it and, after presenting his ideas to the American Secretary of the Navy, he was provided with a torpedo boat in Newport Harbour, Rhode Island, to carry out testing.^[5] 

The sitter died 5 July 1938 in Budapest.

PROVENANCE:

Given by the artist to the sitter, 1931;

By descent

EXHIBITED:

•Knoedler Galleries, New York, An Exhibition of Portraits by P.A. de László, M.V.O., for the Benefit of the Emergency Unemployment Relief Fund, 4-16 January 1932, no. 20

•Newportraits: Three Centuries of Newport People, Newport Art Museum, USA, July-Sept. 1992, no. 96

•The Cornelius Vanderbilts of The Breakers: A Family Retrospective, The Preservation Society of Newport County, May-October 1995, no. 303

LITERATURE:

•Jewell, Edward Alden, “Portraits by de László Shown,” New York Times, 5 January 1932, p. 28

•‘Every Court But China,’ Time Magazine, Vol. XIX, no. 4, 25 January 1932, pp. 26-28

•Allen, Armin Brand, The Cornelius Vanderbilts of TheBreakers: A Family Retrospective, The Preservation Society of Newport County, 1995

•Newportraits: Newport Art Museum, University Press of New England, Hanover and London, 2000, pp. 26, 173, 177, ill. pl. 96, p. 176

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 154

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 194

•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. 43, ill.

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection, 14 December entry, p. 352; 15 December entry, p. 353; 24 December entry, p. 362

•László, Philip de, 1933 diary, private collection, 11 November entry, p. 13

KF & MD 2018