3207

Study portrait 

Queen Marie of Romania, née Princess Marie of Edinburgh 1936

Half-length in profile to the left, three-quarter face turned towards the viewer, wearing traditional Romanian costume, a white embroidered full-sleeved blouse and a long white head-scarf tied in a turban, pearl drop earrings, two bracelets on her left wrist, her hand raised to her shoulder

Oil on board, 89 x 68 cm (35 x 26 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower right: In souvenier of Cotroceni / de László 1936 London [blue chalk]  

Laib L14677D(226) / C24(29)

NPG 1936-37 Album, p. 8

Private Collection

De László had spent six weeks in Bucharest in February and March 1936 where he completed a full length portrait of Queen Marie [3211] and a three-quarter length of her son King Carol II [4220] for the National Bank of Romania. The artist had abandoned his first concept for the portrait of Queen Marie [2961] and it remained in his studio until his death together with three preparatory works [3204] [111639] [84]. He also completed a study portrait of Queen Marie in mourning [3208], which was given to her as a sixtieth birthday present by her friend Oscar Kauffmann, President of the Banca de Credit Român.

De László and the sitter spent many days together while he executed her portraits and a posthumous full length of her husband King Ferdinand [4217], which she watched him paint using a model posing in the King’s uniform. The artist reciprocated her kindness to him when she visited London in July 1936, writing to his friend, Alfred Lys Baldry: “We are having a luncheon party to-morrow for the Queen of Roumania – to try to pay something for her very generous hospitality which I enjoyed in Bucharest, and before and after the luncheon she is sitting for another sketch in Roumanian costume.”^[1] The inscription on the picture describes it as a souvenir of their time together. De László often gave his favourite sitters a gift of a drawing or study portrait they often had not realised he had completed.

Queen Marie requested that she be painted in traditional Romanian dress to reflect her love for her adopted country.^[2] She was to die only two years later, sharing her feelings in a letter, To my Country and my People, to be read after her death: “I was barely seventeen years old when I came to you; I was young and innocent, yet very proud of my native land and to this day I am still proud of having been born English. But, when I embraced a new nationality, I did my best to become a good Roumanian […] I was destined to live through great sorrows and great fulfilments together with you, my People. After some time, I was destined to become your guide, your inspiration […] back in those days, you gave me a name that has been dear to me – you called me ‘Mother of all’ and it is thus that I want you to remember me, as the one who was always there for you in pain or in peril. There came a time, later, when you denied me, but that is the fate of mothers; I took it and I went on loving you, although I could no longer be of so much help to you as I used to be when you believed in me […] Bless you, my beloved Roumania, land of my joy and my sorrows, beautiful land which has lived in my heart, whose paths I knew all.”^[3]

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [2961].

EXHIBITED:

Veste Coburg und Schloß Callenberg, Ein Herzogtum und viele Kronen /Coberg in Bayern und Europa, 3 June to 28 kjh September 1997, cat no:  1-109: Köningin Maria von Rumänien, ill. p. 93

LITERATURE:  

•Roumania, Queen Marie (of), Diaries, vol. III / 195 (film reel 489), pp. 77, 80-81, National Archives, Bucharest

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 175, 352- 3, 376

•Ion, Narcis Dorin, Bran Castle, Tritonic Publishing, 2004, p. 74

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 268, 270

•DLA024-0094, letter from de László to Alfred Lys Baldry, 22 July 1936

•DLA123-0079, letter from Queen Marie of Romania to de László, 3 August 1936

SMdeL & KF 2014