4448

Fürstin Maria Teresa von Hohenzollern, née Princess Bourbon-Two Sicilies 1900

Half-length to the left, looking full face to the viewer, wearing a white Empire line dress with short puff sleeves embroidered with gold, a gold organza stole round her, a two stranded pearl necklace with a large jewelled tear-drop pearl pendant and a gold band in her hair, a fleur-de-lys in the top left corner, against a red background

Oil on canvas, 80 x 59.7 cm (31 ½ x 23 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. / Potsdam / 900 

Sitters’ Book I, f. 24: Marie Theresie Erbprinzessin / von Hohenzollern Pr von / Bourbon 1900

Fürstlich Hohenzollernsche Sammlungen und Hofbibliothek, Sigmaringen, Germany

From the end of 1899 to the beginning of 1900, de László stayed with the German Imperial family at Potsdam and  painted the Empress Auguste Viktoria [4960] and her seven-year-old daughter Princess Victoria Luise [5090] before completing the present portrait of Fürstin Maria Teresa von Hohenzollern. As happened with so many of his sitters, the Princess became very fond of the artist and his wife Lucy and soon after his visit she wrote to him: “I want to thank you from the depth of my heart for the pleasure you have given to my Baroness [her lady-in-waiting, Baroness Lilly Goeler von Ravensburg] and to me. It is with a feeling of soft melancholy that I now go to the studio where, thanks to you, I have spent so many agreeable hours. I should be tremendously pleased if it were possible for you to come to Potsdam in August. You must be with us from breakfast-time onward, and we will spoil you terribly and take care of you…I shall always think of you in faithful friendship and attachment as long as I live, and whenever I can help you in my humble way I shall always be ready to do so, wherever I am. You must feel how grateful I am to you. God bless you and save you throughout your life. This is my sincere desire. Don’t quite forget your Margit.”^[1] 

A number of letters to ‘Kedves Fülöp’ (‘Dear Fülöp’) and ‘Dear Lucy’ give proof of the warm friendship that developed over the years between the Fürstin and the de Lászlós. They also met occasionally, for example in the Bavarian spa town of Bad Tölz, where the sitter’s mother, Countess Mathilde Trani, née Duchess in Bavaria and sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, had a house. De László also made three drawings of Princess Maria Teresa  as mementos of their friendship [4457][10524][114327].

Upon recommendation of the sitter, he painted her mother in Rome in 1900 [7363] and again in 1906 [10549]. In 1907 he also painted Maria Teresa’s mother-in-law Princess Leopold von Hohenzollern, née Princess Antonia de Braganza [4461]. De László made several drawings and study-portraits of the sitter’s daughter, Princess Auguste Viktoria: in 1906 [13560], 1910 [111393] and 1914 [5160]. In 1915 he painted her as Queen of Portugal [4455].

Princess Maria Teresa was born on 15 January 1867 at the ‘Venedig-Gut’ in Enge, near Zurich, the only child of Mathilde Countess of Trani, née Duchess in Bavaria (1843-1925), and Luigi Count of Trani, Prince of Bourbon-Two-Sicilies (1838-1886). Especially for this occasion the sitter’s famous aunt ‘Sisi’, the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, came to Zurich to support her sister. Her own daughter Marie Valerie was to become one of Maria Teresa’s closest friends. Mädi – as Maria Teresa was called in the family – spent most of her childhood in Baden-Baden, while her parents, already separated, travelled the world and wrote to her from places like Paris or Possenhofen. Her replies spoke of solitude and longing. The death of her ‘Carissimo Papà’ in Paris in 1886, at the age of forty-eight, was a severe blow to her.

On 27 June 1889, Mädi married the Hereditary Prince [Erbprinz] Wilhelm von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1864-1927), General of the Infantry of the Prussian Army. Although he technically succeeded as Fürst in 1905, he never ruled, as the Sigmaringen branch of the Hohenzollern family kept the reigning rights over the Sigmaringen principality in title only.^[2] They had three children: Princess Auguste Viktoria (born 1890),^[3] and twins: Prince Friedrich of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen^[4] and Prince Franz Joseph, Prince of Hohenzollern-Emden (born 1891).^[5]   

From a very early age Princess Maria Teresa suffered from a severe illness, most probably multiple sclerosis. The cold and inhospitable surroundings of Sigmaringen castle being detrimental to her health, she spent much time in Cannes or with her mother in Tölz. In September 1906, when de László painted a second portrait of her mother in Bavaria [10549], his wife Lucy noted in her diary: “The Poor Princess of Hohenzollern was also there.  She is so ill, creeping paralysis, & has got grey since I saw her last, just six years ago,^[6] when we were on our way to Budapest”.^[7] Exactly a year later, in September 1907, the sitter’s cousin Archduchess Marie Valerie made almost the same observation. In her diary she wrote: “Visited aunt Spatz and Mädi in Tölz. The latter was in a desolate state of increasing paralysis and beginning mental decrease – and yet ignorant about the hopelessness of her state – always talking about horse riding.”^[8] On 1 March 1909, Maria Teresa eventually died in Cannes, at the age of forty-two. She is buried in Sigmaringen.

EXHIBITED:

•Glaspalast, Munich, Glaspalast International Exhibition, 1900, no. 569

•Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Winter Exhibition [Téli kiállítás], 1900/01, no. 314

•Galerie Schulte, Berlin, 1900

•Hungarian Fine Arts Museum, Budapest, 1907, no. 156

•Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Künstlerhaus Annual Exhibition, May and June 1901, no. 409

•Schulte Gallery, Berlin^[9] 

LITERATURE:

•Vasárnapi Újság, vol. 48, issue 28, Franklin- Társulat, Budapest, 14 July 1901, ill. p. 452

•Tahi, Anthony, “A Hungarian Painter: Filip E. László.” in The Studio Magazine, London, October 1901, Vol. XXIV (24), n° 103, pp. 2-22, ill. p. 3  

•Vollmar, H., “Fülöp László,” Moderne Kunst, Vol. XVII, 1903, p. 246, ill.

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, no. 106, Ph A. von László, Bielefeld and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 58, ill. p. 44, plate no. 48

•Williams, Oakley, ed., Selections from the Work of P.A. de László, Hutchinson, London 1921, pp. 25-28, ill. facing p. 24

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 181-2, 201        

•Bestenreiner, Erika, Sisi und ihre Geschwister [Sisi and her Siblings]  Piper Verlag GmbH, Munich and Zurich 2002

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László. His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, pp. 62-63

•Ion, Narcis Dorin, Regele Caroli Ctitorul României Moderne [King Caroli, Founder of Modern Romania], vol. 1, Editura Măiastra, Târgu Jiu, 2019, p. 28, ill.

•DLA041-0028, letter from Princess Maria Teresa to de László, 28 January 1900

•DLA044-0005, letter from Princess Maria Teresa to de László, [undated]

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, private collection

•DLA042-0016, letter from Rudolf von Spee to de László, 5 June 1908

•DLA044-0004, letter from Baroness Luise Goeler von Ravensburg to de László, 16 January 1900

•DLA068-083, letter from Baroness Luise Goeler von Ravensburg to de László, 24 April 1900

•DLA068-082, letter from Baroness Luise Goeler von Ravensburg to de László, 17 November 1900

•DLA090-0250, “Aus dem Wiener Künstlerhause” [From the Vienna Künstlerhaus], Pester Lloyd, 22 March 1901, p. 2

•DLA041-0030, letter from Maria Teresa Hohenzollern to de László, [undated]

•DLA120-0051, letter from Maria Teresa Hohenzollern to de László, [undated]

•DLA011-0069, letter from Rudolf von Spee to de László, 27 August 1910

•DLA091-0291, English Press cutting, [undated]

AG 2012