7936

Study portrait

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, née Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena of Battenberg1912

Half-length in profile to the left, her face turned in three-quarter profile to the viewer, wearing a pale pink dress with an off-the-shoulder white muslin gathered bodice, bead drop earrings and a silver bead choker, decorated combs in her hair and two gold bangles on her left wrist, holding a sprig of flowers in both hands, which are raised to her breast, all against a mauve and grey background

Oil on board, 92.7 x 72.4 cm (36 ½ x 28 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. de László / Osborne Cottage / 1912. VIII. 14. 

Laib L6488 (783) / C25 (3)  

NPG 1903-14 Album, p. 20

NPG 1907-13 Album, p. 41

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 77: Victoria Eugenia / Cowes. Aug. 14. 1912

Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid

This is the second portrait that de László painted of the Queen of Spain. The others are [7933] [7939] [111735] [12398] & [11168]. It was painted in August 1912 on the Isle of Wight, at Osborne House, which had been the seaside residence of Queen Victoria, the sitter’s grandmother. This spontaneous study portrait is more intimate than the one de László painted of her in 1910 [7933], when he painted the portraits of several other members of the Spanish royal family in Madrid, including King Alfonso XIII [7925] and the Queen Mother [7922].

Rather than emphasizing the stateliness of the Queen, this private work reveals an almost voluptuous beauty. He portrays her wearing a surprisingly daring off-the-shoulder dress, in soft harmonies of grey, a colour she favoured, together with blue, to offset her fair complexion and pale gold hair.^[1] 

Owen Rutter, de László’s first biographer, noted that ‘Subsequently the Queen wrote to her mother, Princess Henry of Battenberg, “Please let Mr. de László know that everyone in Madrid is delighted with the reproductions of his picture and the general opinion is that it is the only good portrait of me.”^[2]        

Victoria Eugenia was expecting her third son, don Juan, when this portrait was painted. After the renunciations to the throne by his two elder brothers, don Alfonso and don Jaime, don Juan became the heir to the throne. This portrait was first hung in the Salón de Espejos in the Palacio Real, Madrid^[3] and later in the dining room of Queen Victoria Eugenia’s residence, Villa Vieille Fontaine in Lausanne. On his mother’s death, Don Juan inherited the large formal portrait of his mother, painted by de László in 1926 [11168] while his sister doña María Cristina inherited this earlier portrait. Don Juan and his sister exchanged these two portraits, because don Juan felt this “Osborne” painting showed her in the most tender light and was, in effect, also a portrait of himself.

De László commissioned fine lithographic reproductions (c. 35 x 27 cm in size) of the present portrait. One remained in his family’s possession on his death, inscribed by him to one of his sons.  Two others have thus far been recorded, one was signed by the sitter and the signature P.A. de László  impressed into the mount.  The other remains in the possession of the royal collection in Monaco^[4].

For further biographical notes on the sitter, see [7933].

PROVENANCE:

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, the sitter, until her death in 1969;

Doña María Cristina, the sitter’s daughter;

Don Juan de Borbón y Battenberg, conde de Barcelona, the sitter’s son

EXHIBITED:  

•Thos. Agnew & Sons, Old Bond Street, Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June-July 1913, no. 11

LITERATURE:

•Williams, Oakley (ed.) Selections from the Work of P.A. de László, Hutchinson, London, 1921, pp. 165-168 and ill. facing p. 164

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 272

•González de la Vega y San Román, Javier, “La Reina Victoria Eugenia, hoy,” in Sábado Gráfico, December 1967, p. 27, ill. [head only]

•Noel, Gerard, Ena, Spain's English Queen, London, 1984, ill. Frontispiece and on front dust cover (detail)

no. 20, January-March 2004, p. 28 

SMdeL 2011