4856

Vilmos Ruttkay 1927
Half-length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing dίszmagyar 

Oil on canvas, 81 x 59 cm (31 ⅞ x 23 ¼ in.)
Inscribed lower left: To my friend / de László / 1927 aug.

NPG Album 1927-28, p. 8: Mr. de Ruttkay

Sitters’ Book II, f. 55: V. de Ruttkay 29th August 1927

Szépművészeti Múzeum [Museum of Fine Arts], Budapest

De László moved from Vienna to London in 1907 and through his contact with the Austro-Hungarian Embassy he met Vilmos Ruttkay, who served as Commercial Attaché there prior to the First World War. Between 1904 and 1914 he painted many diplomats, including Count Albert Mensdorf-Pouilly-Dietrichstein,  Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, on four occasions [4697]. In 1908 he painted Count Lajos Széchényi [4233] and Hungarian Ambassadors Count László Szapáry [6] in 1925 and Baron Iván Rubido-Zichy [111030] in 1931. De László was frequently enlisted to advise Hungarian artists visiting London.

Vilmos Ruttkay de Alsó et Felső Rutka et Nedecze was born in Budapest 29 September 1869, the son of Vilmos Ruttkay and his wife Mária, née Lovassy.  He was descended from an ancient family from the northern Hungarian county of Túrócz, now in Slovakia, and traced his origins to the mid-thirteenth century. A member of the family was created a baron in 1708 but this branch became extinct. Ruttkay joined the Austro-Hungarian foreign service, but nothing is known of his career prior to his appointment to the Hungarian Embassy in London. He returned to Hungary at the outbreak of the First World War, and retired shortly after. In 1915 and 1916 he published two books on the economic and political aspects of the First World War.^[1] 

On 29 April 1898 the sitter married Ludovica Mosselmans (1878-1901), in Alexandria. Born in the Hague, she died in Argelés in the French Pyrenees at the age of 23. He later married Maria Konetsin, whose dates are unknown.

Most of the extensive correspondence between Ruttkay and de László was, somewhat surprisingly, in English. In 1924 Ruttkay wrote an article in a Budapest newspaper about de László’s exhibition at the French Gallery in London. He later made an English translation of the piece for the artist.^[2] 

During his retirement Ruttkay travelled widely, mostly in Italy, and stayed in Venice, Rome, Florence, Trieste, Taormina and Siracusa. He became an amateur watercolour artist and this interest became a bond between himself and de László, whose only surviving works in that medium are religious subjects [12251] and still lifes [13308], painted during his internment when he did not have access to oils. Ruttkay painted landscapes throughout Italy, and often sent examples to de László who offered him helpful advice and criticism.^[3] In 1934 de László sent him a present of a palette of watercolours and a folding easel.^[4] However, Ruttkay was handicapped in his painting by a fracture of his right arm that he had sustained in a riding accident in his youth. He was despondent and depressed, and felt, “very tired of this constant homeless wandering… I don’t know what I will do. Certainly I feel that being quite by myself … my energy is probably leaving me.”^[5] Lucy de László, the artist’s wife, knew Ruttkay well. In a letter to her husband written in 1933 she described him as a “sad and lonely poor fellow.”^[6] 

The date of the sitter’s death is unknown. De László and Lucy met him for the last time in Venice in September 1935.^[7] The artist’s last letter to Ruttkay was written on 19 August 1937, shortly before his death in November that year.^[8]


LITERATURE:
•Ruttkay, Vilmos, “László kiállitás Londonban [A László exhibition in London],” Pesti Hírlap, 24 June 1927, p. 10 [English translation by Ruttkay in DLA107-0153]
•Ruttkay, Vilmos, A világháború: német - angol versengés [The World War: German-English rivalry], Franklin Társulat, Budapest, 1915
•Ruttkay, Vilmos, A világháború - Olaszország, a Balkán és Ausztria-Magyarország [The World War -  Italy, the Balkans and Austria-Hungary], Franklin Társulat, Budapest, 1916 
•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László. His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, pp. 207-208

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 214

•DLA010-0020, letter from Vilmos Ruttkay to de László, 12 January 1913
•DLA017-0133, letter from Vilmos Ruttkay to de László, 18 July 1930

•DLA027-0032, letter from Lucy de László to de László, 26 December 1933
•DLA023-0129, letter from de László to Vilmos Ruttkay, 22 May 1934
•DLA023-0132, letter from de Lászlό to Vilmos Ruttkay, 17 September 1934
•DLA025-0103, letter from de László to Vilmos Ruttkay, 19 August 1937

•László, Lucy de, 1927 diary, private collection, 28 October entry
•László, Lucy de, 1935 diary, private collection, 7 September entry

Pd’O 2019