13399

Doctor Zsigmond László 1896

Half-length to the left, head full face to the viewer, wearing díszmagyar, the ceremonial dress of a Hungarian nobleman, with decorations at the neck, the Cross of the Italian Order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus and the Commander’s Cross of the Russian Order of St Anna, the Austro-Hungarian Order of Leopold on his left breast, an ornately bejewelled chain holding his cloak, all within a painted oval
Oil [support and dimensions unknown]
Inscribed upper left: Méltóságos László Zsigmond urnak / tisztelete jeléűl / László Fϋlöp [To His Honour Mr. Zsigmond László / as a token of his esteem / Philip László]

Inscribed upper right: MDCCCLXXXXVI

Private Collection

De László stayed with Zsigmond László in August 1896, at his country house in Domony, east of Budapest. He described the sitter as: “a dilettante in art. He took a fancy to me and I gave him some instruction in painting. He invited me to paint his portrait and that of his son, who was in the navy. I painted the son [110970] in his uniform and the father in Hungarian national dress. I received 400 florins^[1] for the two pictures. He asked me to his country place, where I stayed about ten days, and painted a subject picture for myself, called ‘After Work’ - a little peasant girl sitting in the hay [9003]. I cannot say I enjoyed my visit. Once I had lived outside Hungary I found it difficult to sympathise with my fellow countrymen’s narrow and oriental view of life.”^[2] 

The sitter’s granddaughter recalled in a memoir written for her daughter: “My grandfather wanted to be a painter when he was young, but his parents did not allow it. Therefore, it was not until he was older that he built a studio on the top of the steer barn and painted there. He was talented, but was not a trained painter. So, what he did was to invite poor, talented painters to stay with him. He watched how they painted and learned.”^[3] In 1895, he painted a figure study of a man wearing a red and white turban which is very similar to the figure study de László painted a year earlier in Sofia [110635], but we have no record of Zsigmond László having gone to Bulgaria.

Zsigmond László painted a portrait of his wife [112845] as a pendant to the present portrait, inscribed: MANU SENILI / AMORE JUVENILI / Fecit Uxor S. László / 1906 [With old hands, but young love, painted by her husband S.László, 1906].

Doctor Zsigmond László was born in Pest 30 April 1845, the only son of György László (1808-1858) and Barbara Schneider (Szabό)^[4] (1827-1915). He studied Law at the University of Pest. From 1867 he worked in the Ministry of Justice, where he eventually became Ministerial Counsellor, head of the Prisons Department and superintendent of all penal establishments in Hungary. He  was a director of various insurance companies and an elected member of the Red Cross. He was also appointed an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur.

In 1869 or 1870 he married Ilona Hoffmann (1848/49-1941). They had three sons and three daughters. Their daughters Ilona and Margit married Sándor and Jenő, sons of Miklós Szabó de Nárai [7229]. Szabó’s elder son Sándor Szabó de Nárai [111289] was a close friend of de László, and also a friend and colleague of Elek Lippich, de László’s mentor [112171].^[5] The sitter owned a villa in Fonyód, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton. Fonyód became a fashionable resort in the 1890’s, and Elek Lippich and the Szabó family also owned villas there. De László spent a holiday in Fonyód in July 1896 and visited them there.^[6] 

The sitter died 31 August 1913.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family of the sitter

LITERATURE:
•László Gábor 1896-os fonyódi naplója (The 1896 Fonyód Diary of Gábor László), Ed. Varga István, Agenda Natura, Veszprém, 2008
•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, pp. 151, 152
•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László. His Life and Art. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, p. 46

•DLA029-0031, letter from Zsigmond László to de László, 3 November 1896



Pd’O 2017