4866

UNTRACED
Portrait drawing
Gyula Wlassics 1901

Head and shoulders to the left, head turned in three-quarter profile and looking to the viewer, a jacket and shirt just indicated

Graphite on paper, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower right: László F. E. 1901

Sitters’ Book I., f. 16: Wlassics Gyula

This expressive drawing was given by de László to Doctor Gábor de Térey [11881] and it is unclear if it was intended to be ironic as de Térey felt Wlasssics had blocked his career. Soon after the latter lost his ministerial post with the fall of the Khuen-Héderváry [111984] government in 1903, de Térey wrote to de László: “The (second) event is the departure of Wlassics who is now in Italy licking his wounds. No one will shed tears for him, least of all my humble self. During the seven full years that I have been here he has done nothing for me, I am still in the same position! … Wlassics’s total effort consisted of hanging frantically onto his chair.”^[1] 

The drawing is thought to have been completed during sittings for a formal portrait of Wlassics [110810].

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [110810].

PROVENANCE:
Doctor Gábor de Térey

EXHIBITED:
•Fine Art Society, London, Philip A. László, Portrait Paintings and Drawings, May and June 1907, cat. 56

•Nemzeti Szalon (National Salon), Budapest, 1907, cat. 13 (In the collection of Dr. Gábor de Térey)

LITERATURE:
•The Studio Magazine, October 1901, vol. 24, no. 103, pp. 207-209, ill. p. 207

•DLA066-0102, letter from Gábor de Térey to de László, 10 November 1903    

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

BS & Pd’O  2019