112072

UNTRACED 

Study portrait

Irma Fürstin zu Fürstenberg, née Countess Schönborn-Buchheim 1899

Half-length, her back to the viewer and head turned in three-quarter profile over her right shoulder and looking to the viewer, wearing Van Dyck dress with a large lace ruff, drop earrings, and a pearl ferronnière in her hair

Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

Indistinctly inscribed middle right: László F. E. / 1899. in Verehrung [with admiration] / VII. 31.

Sitters’ Book I, f. 3: Irma Fürstin zu Fürstenberg / 26. März 1899 

Sitters’ Book I, f. 28: Irma Fürstin zu Fürstenberg / 24 / 7 1899.

In July 1899 de László visited Schloss Donaueschingen, the Fürstenbergs’ estate in the Black Forest in Germany, to finish the three-quarter length portraits of the sitter [5297] and her husband [3360] begun in Vienna in March 1899. This portrait in Van Dyck dress was painted there and is thought to be a pendant to the portrait of her husband in the uniform of the Garde du Corps [5297]. It is not conclusive whether a destroyed preparatory study [112356] was for the present picture or [5297].

Costume balls were extremely popular among the aristocracy in Europe in the nineteenth century and guests were invited to attend as famous historical figures. The most elaborate of these entertainments was the Devonshire House Ball to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Victoria in London in 1897. The Duchess of Devonshire dressed as Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) and the Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra [7707], was Queen Marguerite of Valois (1553-1613), the consort of Henri IV of France. Numerous members of the English court dressed as her ladies in waiting in similar costume to that in the present portrait; these included the future Queen Mary, wife of George V. De László painted four more portraits in historical dress in 1899: the comtesse de Castellane [3769], Countess Csekonics [7116], baronne Emile d’Erlanger [4352] and Baron Reischach [113062].

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [5297].

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the sitter’s family

EXHIBITED:

•Conversationshaus, Baden Baden, Collectiv Portrait Ausstellung, August-September 1899, no. 6

LITERATURE:    

•NSzL150-0084 German press cutting, August 1899

•DLA090-0131, German press cutting, 15 August 1899

•DLA90-0193, “Kunstausstellung im Conversationshaus”, German press cutting, [undated, presumably 1899]

BS KF 2018