4468

Madame Joseph de Fontenay, styled vicomtesse de Fontenay, née Renée Pichon 1913

Seated three-quarter-length to the right, her head turned and looking to the left, in a white evening gown and a fur-trimmed, deep blue velvet coat, holding the end of a string of pearls to her breast with her right hand, her left also holding the necklace and resting on her lap, a cloudy landscape behind

Oil on canvas, 105 x 73 cm (39 ⅜ x 28 ¾ in.)

Inscribed, lower left: P.A. de László / 1913. II

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 92: Vtesse de Fontenay Paris - 22 Février 1913

Musée Lambinet, Versailles

De Montesquiou^[1] described de László’s portrait of vicomtesse de Fontenay as: “the latter-day presentment of the exquisitely delicate fragile beauty of the type of the eighteenth-century ‘petite Marquise.’ In her soft bright draperies she looks exquisitely radiant and flower-like.”^[2] Indeed, de László has placed his sitter most elegantly in “contrapposto”, thus lengthening the line of her neck and casting a subtle light on the curve of her bare shoulders.

De László’s biographer Rutter described the circumstances in which the artist painted the vicomtesse: “Early in 1914 he [de László] went back to Paris, where he stayed with his friend the duc de Guiche [later duc de Gramont] and was fêted everywhere. He painted the Vice-President Jean Dupuy, M. et Mme. de Bruyn, Baron Meyendorff, and his wife, the Countess de Pourtalès and the Countess de Fontenay. He had so many social invitations that even he confessed that he was tired out.”^[3] However Rutter seems to have been mistaken regarding the date, as the portrait is dated 1913. It is noted in Lucy de László’s diary, 5 March 1913 that £395.14.6 was paid for the portrait.

The artist’s studio inventory^[4] records another portrait of the vicomtesse – wearing the same gown as in the present portrait – also painted in Paris in 1913, which was almost certainly a version that was rejected. That portrait was in the possession of the artist on his death, but was burnt in 1947, under the conditions of the artist’s will, which stipulated that works not worthy of his reputation should be destroyed.

Marie Rosalie ‘Renée’ Pichon was born on 31 March 1870, the daughter of Étienne Pichon, a Sub-Prefect, and his wife Béatrice de Cassagne de Beaufort de Miramon. On 30 October 1888 she married Joseph de Fontenay, styled vicomte de Fontenay,^[5] at St-Germain-en- Laye. Together they had two sons, Charles-Joseph (born 1889) and Étienne (born 1893), who were both killed in action in 1916.^[6] A daughter, Charlotte, was born in 1926. The sitter’s husband, Louis Gabriel Antoine Joseph de Fontenay, followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, and became a diplomat. Due to his many distinguished appointments over the years, the couple lived in Portugal, Vienna, Korea, Budapest, Columbia and Serbia during the First World War. Finally, he was appointed French Ambassador to Madrid from 1923 until 1924 and to the Holy See in Rome from 1928 until 1932. The Vicomtesse was known as one of the best hostesses in Europe. The President of the Republic, Raymond Poincaré, King Alexander of Yugoslavia, the sovereigns of Denmark, and Queen Amélie of Portugal counted amongst the couple’s regular guests at the magnificent Hôtel Fontenay, rue de Gravelle. Following the death of the Vicomte in 1946, she donated a large part of her collection to the Bibliothèque de Versailles. She died in Versailles on 19 December 1952.    

PROVENANCE:         

Purchased by the Musée Lambinet, Versailles, in November 1977 from a private collection;

Offered for sale at Libert-Castor, Paris, on 19 January 1994, lot 106;

Offered for sale at Berlinghi and Lucien, Nogent-sur-Marne, on 7 December 1995;

Musée Lambinet, Versailles

EXHIBITED:                 

•Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1913, n° 729

•Musée Lambinet, Versailles, 2003-4

LITERATURE:                 

•The Studio, London, 1913, Vol. LIX (59), pp. 35-42, ill. p. 42

•L’Illustration, 3 May 1913, ill. p. 417

•Williams, ed., Selections from the work of P.A. de László, foreword by comte Robert de Montesquiou, London, 1921, p. 218

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 282

•Versailles, vie artistique, littéraire et mondaine de 1889 à         1939, 4th edition, Somogy, 2003, p. 95, ill.

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 230

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection, p. 148

We are grateful to Timothy F. Boettger for his help with the biographical notes

CC 2008