4824

Edle Astrup 1932

Head and shoulders to the right, her head slightly turned to the left, looking away, wearing a simple cream blouse with a cowl neck

Oil on canvasboard, 62 x 50 cm (24 ⅜ x 19 ⅝ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1932.   

Private Collection

In 1896, de László painted a portrait of Edle Astrup’s mother-in-law, Róza [4825], which he presented to her husband, the famous violinist Jenő Hubay, as a token of his friendship. This mutual feeling endured over the years, and in the early 1930s, the artist was also in frequent touch with their son Andor, as he was the director of the National Salon in Budapest, where de László was a regular exhibitor.

Edle Astrup, however, did not meet the artist through her fiancé, but, as she explained in her memoirs Medaljen har to sider,^[1] through her mother: “there was a dinner at Sir Edwin Lutyens’ - who was England’s most well-known architect at that time - where my mother met F. László.  He told me that he was going to start a big composition, which he would call The Women 1914-1918. Did I want to sit as a model for him?  He had imagined an interior of a church, I should sit in front with a black widow scarf and a baby in my arms. It sounded too sad - and I said ‘no thank you’ to his great astonishment. I had just been sitting as a model for Henrik Lund,^[2] and I didn’t really like it. However, some days later, I got a letter from F. László - would I change my mind? He would send his car and chauffeur. I should come and have lunch with him. I did so, and did accept his offer. I should first of all get a portrait of myself, which I did. I spent so many fascinating and interesting hours in László’s studio.” ^[3] 

De László’s ambitious project, to which he referred in the press as The Suffering of Women 1914-1918, never came to fruition, although many studies and sketches remained in his studio on his death [3159], one of which shows Edle, a described above, sitting in a church surrounded by other widows, with a baby in her lap [2974]. For his projected work, de László favoured ‘real women’ rather than professional models, and to thank them for their collaboration, he often painted their portrait. As well as the present instance, he also portrayed Lady Alexandra Haig [5549], Mrs Vincent Galloway [11540], and Baroness Anne-Marie Slatin [7176].

Edle Astrup was born on 20 May 1905, the daughter of Ebbe Carsten Morgen Astrup (1876-1956) and his wife Anna Edle Margrethe Wedel-Jarlsberg (1880-1926). Her father was a colonel and their family life was prosperous but unostentatious. She was brought up on the landed estate of Atlungstad in Hedemark in eastern Norway. In the 1930s she went to London where she worked as a free-lance journalist, interviewing celebrities such as George Bernard Shaw, Axel Munthe, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford; it was at this time that she sat to de László. In Venice on 6 May 1933, she married the artist Andor de Hubay-Cebrián, whose parents were the Hungarian composer and violinist, Jenő (Eugen) Hubay and his wife Countess Róza Cebrián [4825]. They had a daughter, Rozann (born 1938) and a son, László (born 1946). Shortly after the marriage they moved to Hungary and set about adapting to the new Hungarian ways with curiosity and delight. However, events in central Europe were moving towards war, and the Hubay family, who disassociated themselves from Hitler’s Germany and whose home was in the danger zone, suffered much, first at the hands of the invading Nazi troops and later at the hands of the Soviet ‘liberators.’ Their family possessions were confiscated and Andor, finding it impossible to work under the new communist régime, escaped from Hungary with his family and sought refuge first in Norway and then Portugal, where they remained for over 20 years. Edle de Hubay-Cebrián’s account of her life was published in Oslo in 1980.  She died on 3 February 1989, aged eighty-three.

LITERATURE:        

•Hubay-Cebrián, Edle de, Medaljen har to sider [The Medal has two sides], Aschehoug, Oslo, 1980, pp. 24-26, ill. on dust cover (German edition, Licht und Schatten, Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra, 2003; Portuguese edition, De Budapeste ao Estoril – Uma Vontade Indomavel, Oficina do Livro, Sociedade Editorial, Lda, Lisbon, 2003; Hungarian edition, Budapesttől Estorilig Töretlen akarattal, Európa Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2007; French edition, Danube Rouge, Editions Soliflor, Brussels, 2007)

CC 2011