7933

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, née Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena of Battenberg 1910

Half-length to the right, full face, wearing a white stole edged with fur over a blue dress, a pearl necklace and drop earrings

Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 71.8 cm (35 ½ x 28 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. László / 1910 / IV. Madrid 

Sitters’ Book I, f. 87: Victoria Eugenia. [among signatures of the Queen Mother, María Cristina and King Alfonso XIII, dated: 12. IV. 1910]

Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid

“This was to have been a holiday trip, but it has turned out differently,” wrote Lucy de László to her husband’s family in Budapest, describing their sojourn in Spain in 1910: “For I sit here alone in the hotel and Philip is painting in the Palace – with the young Queen as his model. It happened thus. Princess Henry of Battenberg [3488] (sister of the King of England) gave Philip a letter of introduction to the Queen Mother, Maria Cristina [7922], who is Austrian. […] The end of it all was she said she would arrange for the King to sit to Philip for his portrait – and so it was. The following day Philip was received in audience by the King and the young Queen and a sitting was arranged for the next day.”^[1] As was common when he became on good terms with a family, he ended up painting husband and wife, and all their children on this and subsequent visits to Spain.

Of the Queen, Lucy wrote in her diary: “She has got an outspoken frank way of talking – Lovely fair hair, but one of her eyes has a queer expression,^[2] & this comes out in the portrait! I said something to her, how is the portrait getting on, she replied something about liking to see them, so we all filed into the Studio. […] I heard P. Battenberg^[3] say, the only defect in the Queen’s pic. was that the lips were too full.”^[4] According to Lucy, de László had some concerns about this picture, which perhaps is less expressive than the subsequent four portraits he painted of her.

The pearl necklace the Queen is wearing in the present portrait was bought in St Petersburg by Alfonso XII in 1878 for his first wife, Queen María de las Mercedes de Orléans and Borbón, who died the same year. It was the most valuable piece of jewellery in the Royal Collection.^[5]

Two unauthorised contemporary copies of this portrait, in watercolour, have thus far been traced. They are thought to be by Nellie Harvey^[6] and both bear the signature: P.A. László 1912. The sitter was painted by the artist six times, the others are [7936] [7939] [111735] [12398] [11168].

Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena, the youngest granddaughter of Queen Victoria and niece of King Edward VII, was born at Balmoral on 24 October 1887. She was the second of the four children and only daughter of Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg [3488]. She was christened Eugénie after her honorary godmother, the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, but the name Ena, came about from the minister misreading her mother’s writing of the name Eva.  Her childhood was spent partly at Balmoral and partly on the Isle of Wight, of which her father was Governor. His death in 1896 deeply affected the Princess, but she concentrated her energies in helping her mother in her philanthropic work and in developing her music, in which she showed early and unusual talent.

On 5 June 1905 the nineteen-year old King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, arrived on a five-day state visit to England, of which the principal objective was to find a royal bride. At a ‘relatively intimate’ dinner, given for him by King Edward VII [7705] and Queen Alexandra [7707] at Buckingham Palace, the guests included the King’s niece, Victoria Eugénie, aged seventeen, and several other ‘eligible’ princesses. Previous diplomatic discussions, both at the English and Spanish courts, had favoured Princess Patricia, daughter of the Duke of Connaught. However, she was clearly not interested in Alfonso and at a state reception on the second evening of his visit, he asked, as he had done at the ‘family’ dinner of the first evening, “Who is the beautiful blonde Princess?”. It was clear by the fourth evening, spent at a performance of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden, that he had definitely transferred his attention to Princess Ena. On the last evening, at a lavish ball held at Buckingham Palace, he was able to speak privately to the young princess as they danced. On the day of his departure he called on her mother at Kensington Palace and left a photograph of himself for Ena. Until their next meeting, they were to correspond affectionately for eight months almost every day, by postcard, the fashion of the time for young lovers.

Ena married Alfonso XIII on 3 May 1906 and afterwards was styled Queen Victoria Eugenia. Empress Eugénie, who had been befriended by Queen Victoria in her years of exile in England after Napoleon III’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, was influential in the realisation of this match. In April Edward VII conferred on Victoria Eugénie the style of ‘Royal Highness’, and she was received into the Roman Catholic Church shortly before the announcement of her engagement in March. This conversion was not popular in Britain although Alfonso himself was already well-liked, partly on account of the courage he had shown at the attempt on his life in Paris in May 1905, just before his state visit to London. 

The wedding was marred by another assassination attempt: a bomb, wrapped in a bouquet of flowers, was thrown at the carriage in which the King and Queen were returning to the Royal Palace after the ceremony, it landed just in front of them, behind the rear pair of horses. More than twenty people were killed and the new Queen’s bridal gown was spattered with blood. About a hundred others were wounded. Nevertheless, the King and Queen escaped unharmed, although greatly shaken. They returned immediately in another carriage to the Royal Palace. The next day, they rode unescorted around the streets to assure the people that they had survived. This tragic occurrence actually enhanced Ena’s standing in Spain.

Her ease of manner helped to soften the rigidity of the Court. She avoided politics, but espoused many charitable causes, concerning herself particularly with the improvement of hospitals, and the reorganisation of the Spanish Red Cross, which during the First World War became responsible for a comprehensive scheme of international aid.  The Queen also founded a needlework guild, the Ropero de Santa Victoria, and she did much to encourage education in Spain, which had a high rate of illiteracy.

Apart from a still-born son in 1910 and another in 1918, the King and Queen had four sons and two daughters. The Queen gave much care to the upbringing of her family. The eldest, Alfonso (1907-38) [8004], and the youngest, Gonzalo (1914-1934) [8014], were both afflicted with haemophilia, a disease which ultimately caused their deaths.  The second son, Jaime (1908-1975) [10852], became a deaf mute, although with patient training he managed eventually to learn to speak. The third son, Juan (1913-1993) [12015], served as a midshipman in the British navy, becoming in 1936 an honorary lieutenant. Both the daughters, the Infantas doña Beatriz (1909- 2002) [8008] and doña María Cristina (1911-1996) [10854], married and had health issues.

After Republican success in the 1931 municipal elections, Alfonso went into voluntary exile, though without renouncing the throne. The Queen joined him in France, but the couple decided to separate. She lived in Fontainebleau, and in 1938 joined the royal family in Rome when she became godmother of her grandson, Juan Carlos, who succeeded to the Spanish Throne in 1975.

In the early 1940s she moved to live permanently at Vieille Fontaine, a villa in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she continued to support the welfare of her family. During the King’s illness in Rome in 1941, she hurried to his side and was with him when he died on 28 February. She continued to act as a Queen Mother in exile, supporting her son, don Juan, as the rightful King of Spain. After 1945 she made frequent visits to England, often staying with her only surviving brother, the Marquess of Carisbrooke [6613], until his death in 1960. In 1968 she visited Spain for the first time since her exile to attend the christening of Felipe Juan, son of Juan Carlos, and grandson of her third son, don Juan.  On this occasion she was received by General Franco and his wife. She was greeted warmly by the crowds and when she left 50,000 people said goodbye to her at Barajas airport. She died in Lausanne on 15 April 1969 and was buried at Ouchy in Switzerland. 

In April 1985, sixteen years after Victoria Eugenia’s death, her body was placed in the Pantheon of the Kings and Queens at El Escorial after a High Mass, presided over by her grandson, King Juan Carlos I, Queen Sofía of Spain and the rest of the royal family.

EXHIBITED:
•Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., May-June 1911, no. 26
•Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. László, M.V.O., June-July 1913, no. 11

•Palacio Real, Madrid, El Retrato en Las Colecciones Reales de Patrimonio Nacional de Juan de Flandes a Antonio López, December 2014-April 2015, no. 108

LITERATURE:

•Schleinitz, O. (von) Künstler Monographien, Vol. 106, Ph. A. von László, Bielefeld & Leipzig, 1913, ill. p. 108, pl. 121

•Rutter, Owen. Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 269-70

•Balansó, Juan, La Casa Real de España, Mirasierra, Madrid, 1976

•Rayón, Fernando and José Luis Sampedro, Las Joyas de las Reinas de España,  Planeta, 2004,  p. 251

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University  Press, 2010, pp. 123, 133

•García-Frías Checa, Carmen, ed., El Retrato en Las Colecciones Reales de Patrimonio Nacional de Juan de Flandes a Antonio López, 2015, pp. 466-469, ill. p. 467

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 167, ill. pp. 166, 185

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 9

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 36

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, private collection, p. 160

•DLA162-0511, Pesti Hírlap, 31 May 1911, p. 9

With our grateful thanks to Excmo. Sr. Don Javier González de Vega y San Román for his assistance in preparing the biography for this entry.

SMdeL 2011