111405

Study portrait

Lajos Behr c. 1906

Half-length turned slightly to the left, head turned and and looking full face to the viewer, wearing a dark brown three piece suit and black tie

Oil on canvasboard, 98 x 69.5 cm (38 ⅗ x 27 ⅖ in.)

Inscribed lower right: in Freundschaft / P.A. Laszlo / 19 [indistinct]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 66: Ludwig Behr ⅙ 1904

New Place Hotel, Southampton

The inscribed date on this portrait is indistinct; however, it must have been painted between 1904, when Behr wrote to de László that he would come to Vienna, and 1906 as stated in the catalogue of the April 1907 Nemzeti Salon where it was exhibited.^[1] Behr also signed the artist’s Sitters’ Book in 1904 suggesting the portrait was started then.

Behr wrote to de László to congratulate him on his success and commented on his portrait: “my picture looks wonderful in the Nemzeti Szalon – it has been hung very favourably.”^[2] This was an important solo exhibition of sixty-three paintings spanning the artist’s career, celebrating his reputation in Europe before his move to London that summer.

Ludwig Behr was born on 16 August 1863 into a family traditionally of farmers and winemakers in Heidingsfeld, Bavaria. His father, however, was a painter who also worked as a gilder and restorer. His early years were spent in Würzburg before he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. Thereafter he worked on refurbishing castles in Austria-Hungary, Italy and England. Around 1895 he moved to Budapest where he pursued a lucrative career as an architect and interior decorator, specialising in castles and town palaces. Among his highest profile works were the interiors of the Parliament buildings.

He married Anna Scholtz (b. 1875), daughter of Robert Scholtz (1834-1912), Imperial Court Painter, whose works include the decorative painting of the House of Parliament and the Royal Palace in Budapest, and his wife née Paula Fillinger (d. 1916). Scholtz was a notable collector of Old Master paintings, sculptures and objets d'art and on the death of his mother-in-law, Behr and his wife inherited Scholtz's collections.^[3] Lajos Behr's entire collection was auctioned at Hugo Helbing in Munich in 1933.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Behr returned to Bavaria where he established himself as an impressionist painter at Tutzing on Lake Starnberg. He died in Tutzing on 18 January 1945.

.

PROVENANCE:

Sold Auctionata, Berlin, 23 September 2015

EXHIBITED:  

•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, Exhibition of Works by László Fülöp, April 1907, no. 56 (erroneously named in the catalogue as Beer Lajos)

LITERATURE:         

•DLA033-0097, letter from Lajos Behr to de László, 25 April 1904

•NSzL149-0010, letter from de László to Lajos Ernst, 21 March 1907

•DLA034-0053, letter from Lajos Behr to de László, 19 September 1907

•DLA033-0019, letter from Lajos Behr to de László, no date (probably 1907)

CWS & KF 2023