9050

Study portrait

Princess Egon von Ratibor, née Princess Leopoldine Lobkowicz 1898

Head and shoulders to the right in three-quarter profile, wearing drop-pearl earrings, an evening gown with a bow at the breast just indicated

Oil on board, 71.5 x 42 cm (28 ⅛ x 16 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. / 1898. / XII 

Sitters’ Book I, f. 18: Leopoldine Prssin Ratibor - / Lobkowitz [sic] / 11./ VI 99

Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Poland

Dated December 1898, this is the first of two known head studies of Princess Leopoldine Ratibor [110853] painted while de László was completing a formal portrait of the sitter [6079] during a prolonged stay at Schloss Rauden in Upper Silesia (now Rudy, Poland) in the autumn and winter of 1898-9. The present sketch bears comparison with two other studies, of the sitter’s sister-in-law, Baroness Margarete von Reischach [13528], and brother-in-law, Prince Franz Ratibor [111155], painted at Rauden around the same time, and showing a similar economy of paint and lightness of touch. The present portrait probably remained at Schloss Rauden while the sitter gave the formal portrait to her father, Moritz, Fürst Lobkowicz, at Schloss Raudnitz in Bohemia.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [6079].

PROVENANCE:  

Zofia Turowska Collection;

Purchased by the National Museum of Warsaw in 1979

LITERATURE:  

•“Acquisitions du Département d’Art Etranger, 1970-1981,” Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie, XXIV, 1983, nos. 2-4, p. 53, n° 29

CWS 2008