110899

Preparatory work

Countess Erzsébet Mailáth de Székhely 1896 

Head only, full face to the viewer, long brown hair tied with a pink ribbon, a pink blouse or dress with a white collar just visible

Oil on canvas, 41 x 35 cm (16 ⅛ x 13 ¾ in.) oval

Private Collection

This study and a similar one of Stefanie Mailáth [112504] were preparatory works for a double portrait of the sisters, Erzsébet and Stefanie [13008]. This was one of the most important commissions of the artist’s early career as it introduced him to a new source of patrons from the Hungarian aristocracy. The finished quality of the face in contrast to the loose brushwork of the rest of the picture anticipates the study portraits that were so prevalent in the artist’s later career. This picture and that of Stefanie could be considered among the earliest examples of this type in the artist’s oeuvre. It is thought that de László presented the sitter’s father Count József Mailáth [110819] with these two portraits as a souvenir of the time he spent with them in 1896-1897 painting nine portraits of the family at their family estate in Perbenyik, now in Slovakia.

For biographical notes on the sitter and more about the Mailáth commissions, see [13008].

PROVENANCE:

Count József Mailáth

LITERATURE:

•DLA030-0015, letter from József Mailáth to de László, 23 January 1928

•Cap György, Élet a kastélyban. A székhelyi gróf Mailáth család és a perbenyiki kastély története [Life in the Château. The Family History of the Counts Mailáth de Székhely and the Château of Perbenyik], Nemzetstratégiai kutatóintézet,  Budapest, 2008, p. 264 ill.

KF & Pd’O 2017