113581

János Sváb 1895

Head and shoulders to the right, full face and looking to the viewer, wearing a white dress with a red ribbon

Oil on canvas, 44 x 32.5 cm (17 ⅓  x 12 ¾ in.)

Inscribed upper left: László Fülöp / 895 VII / fábián

Private Collection

The artist was introduced to the Sváb family through his uncle Dr Jakob Frim, director of the most famous mental institution in Budapest. The sitter’s sister [111416] was a patient there and de László received a commission to paint her in 1892. The artist had a close relationship with the family who owned large estates on the Great Hungarian Plain. De László visited them in Sárszög on three consecutive summers from 1893. During his visit in 1893 he painted the sitter’s mother [112588] and the genre pictures The Serious Question [9877], A Peasant Couple Walking [9004] and in a Landscape A Courting Couple in a Rural Landscape [111738]. He stayed at Sárszög again in May 1894 soon after the unveiling ceremony for the portrait of the Minister for Justice Dezső Szilágyi [13102].

The present picture was painted in 1895 in Fábiánpuszta together with a genre picture, Ave Maria [11601].

János István Sándor Sváb was born on 28 August 1894 in Fábiánsebestyén, son of Sándor Sváb (1853-1915) and his wife née Ida Franziska Gold de Tata (1960-c.1944). The extended family owned estates in Fábiánsebestyén, Gátér, Sárszeg, Battonya and Mágor-Vésztő.

The family also had a house in Budapest in Városligeti fasor in the vicinity of the City Park, and János attended school in the same street. Later, he studied agriculture in Vienna. He married Irén Mária Groedel von Gyulafalva und Bogdán (1897-1983) from a wealthy timber merchant family but divorced her in 1934. They had a son János (born 1922). In 1945 he married Stefanie Petrichevich-Horváth de Széplak (1916–1994). They had a daughter Alexandra.

The sitter died in Vienna on 11 December 1966.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

BS

2024