8761

CUT DOWN

Louis-René, styled comte de Gramont 1902

Head and shoulders to the right and looking upwards to the left, wearing a dark jacket, grey waistcoat, a white shirt with a large collar and red tie with a gold tie-pin

Oil on canvas, 80 x 58.4 cm (31½ x 23 in.)

Inscribed top left: László F.E. 1902

Sitters’ Book, f. 60: Louis René de Gramont / 24 Xbre 1902 / Vallière

Maison de Gramont Collection, Musée National et Domaine du Château de Pau

This portrait was originally part of one of the two large group portraits de László made of the de Gramont family in 1902, depicting from left to right Elisabeth de Clermont-Tonnerre, the sitter’s step-sister [4506], Louis-René de Gramont himself (the present portrait) and his father, Antoine XI-Agénor [8762]. The two portraits were each cut three parts in 1929, each sitter on a separate canvas, see [8752], but a photograph of the original composition remains.^[1] When dividing up and retouching the canvases in 1929, de László cut down the two central figures (Louis-René and Armand de Gramont) to head and shoulders, while keeping the full-length format for the four other sitters.

Louis-René de Gramont, born on 10 January 1883, was the younger son of Antoine XI-Agénor, 11th duc de Gramont (1851-1925) and his second wife, Marguerite-Alexandrine von Rothschild (1855-1905). He was the brother of Antoine XII-Armand, duc de Guiche and of Corisande, later the duchesse de Noailles [6625]. Reserved and quiet as a child, he would sometimes lose the ability to speak in front of his imposing father. However, he fought with great bravery in the trenches during the First World War, witnessing the defeats of Morhange and Charleroi. A second lieutenant in the cavalry, he was transferred to the infantry and in June 1915 was severely wounded in the trenches. Thanks to his step-sister Elisabeth de Gramont and to his sister Corisande, who rushed to his bedside, he was transferred from Neufchâteau to the Russian hospital of the Champs-Elysées. His arm, wounded by a landmine, had gone gangrenous, but a family friend, Thierry Martel, operated on him in time, saving both his life and his hand. By now aged thirty-two, he spent eight months in hospital and while convalescing, met Antoinette de Rochechouart-Mortemart (1893-1972), whom he married on 3 August 1916. Together they had four children, Philippe (born 1917), Marguerite (born 1920), René (born 1927), and François (born 1931). The sitter died in Paris on 17 February 1963.

SOURCE: Rapazzini, Francesco. Elisabeth de Gramont Avant-gardiste, collection Vies de  Femmes, Fayard, Paris, pp. 41, 286, 291-2

PROVENANCE:        

By descent in the family;                

Collection Maison de Gramont, on long-term loan to the Musée National du Château de Pau

EXHIBITED:         

•Musée National du Château de Pau, La Belle époque des Gramont au temps des Equipages, 8 October 1994-31 January 1995, no. 34

LITERATURE:        

•Schleinitz, Otto (von), Künstler Monographien Ph A.v. László, Bielefed and Leipzig, (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 50, ill. 57 (in original form, prior to being cut down) p. 68

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 210                        

•Arsène, Alexandre, “Société des Artistes français, Salon de 1903”, in Figaro Illustré, nº 159, June 1903, p. 19

László, Lucy de, 1908-1911 diary, 27 December 1908 entry, p. 39

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 79-81, ill. 42

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, pp. 63, 66

CC  2008