11000

Philippe, comte de Gramont 1928

Standing half-length to the left and looking to the right, wearing a white shirt with a wide gathered collar and a dark blue jacket, holding a book in both hands

Oil on canvas, 109.9 x 90.2 cm (43 ¼ x 35 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / PARIS. 1928 [partly obscured by frame] 

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 60: P. de Gramont / 22 octobre 1928

Private Collection

Due to the closeness between the sitter’s uncle Antoine XII-Armand de Gramont [8136] and the artist, many of the portraits de László painted of him and his immediate family were presented to them as mementos. It is not clear whether the same applied to his younger brother Louis-René’s [8761] family. It is more probable that the present portrait, together with those of the sitter’s mother [8768] & [8770] and sister, Marguerite Corisande [10999] were executed for a fee. In this respect, the present portrait and that of his sister, both painted in 1928, were probably commissioned at the same time, to be hung as a pair.

In both portraits, de László referred back to romantic portraiture, representing the de Gramont children in historical costumes. The composition of the boy’s portrait, holding a book, is strongly reminiscent of the 1923 portrait of Raymond Johnson Ferguson [2297].

Comte Philippe de Gramont was born on 5 May 1917, the eldest son of Comte Louis-René de Gramont and his wife Antoinette de Rochechouart-Mortemart. He was killed in action in the Second World War in the Ardennes, at Mazagran, on 11 June 1940, aged twenty-three.

LITERATURE:

•László, Lucy de, 1927 diary, private collection, 28 October entry, pp. 172-173

•Ribeton, Olivier, Elisa Fontanelli, L’air de famille Elkarren eitea, Musée Basque et de l’histoire de Bayonne, France, 2017, ill. p. 27

CC 2010