111309

Countess József Wenckheim and her son Dénes 1924

Seated half-length, Countess Wenckheim on the left, turned slightly to the right and looking full face to the viewer, wearing gold-coloured silk or satin gown, Dénes to her right close beside her and looking to the right, wearing a dark jacket with white lace collar and cuffs

Oil on canvas, 89 x 71 cm (35 x 28 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / Paris 924.

Coupures, the Artist’s Scrapbook, p. 5

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 42: Denise Wenckheim et Siegfrid / 26 Sept 1924 / Paris

Private Collection

This portrait was painted in Paris in the studio the artist frequently used at 42 bis avenue Henri Martin, the home of his friend and patron Armand, duc de Gramont [11801]. It was included in the Hungarian Fine Art Society Spring Exhibition Retrospective for de László and other important Hungarian artists including his hero Mihály Munkácsy, in Budapest in May and June 1925. This was an important step in re-establishing his reputation in Hungary after the First World War.

De László had previously painted the countess in Vienna in 1907, as a child with her mother and brother [110579]. Her son wears a very similar outfit with a lace collar to her brother in that portrait and it may have been intentional on the part of the artist to link the portraits visually.

Denise Wenckheim was born in Ókígyós 22 December 1898, the eldest child of Count Dénes Wenckheim (1861-1933) and his wife Friederike, née Wenckheim (1873-1957). On 23 October 1920, at the family’s nearby estate in Doboz, she married her maternal uncle Count József Wenckheim (1877-1952). He was the son of Count Frigyes Wenckheim (1842-1912) and his wife Krisztina (1849-1924), heiress of the senior branch of the Wenckheim family. Count József Wenckheim inherited the family castle at Ókígyós, commissioned by his parents and built by Miklós Ybl in 1879 in Neo-Renaissance style. It was the largest and most modern castle in Hungary at the time.

Count Dénes Wenckheim served as a diplomat in Vienna, Munich, Paris, Saint Petersburg and Washington D.C. until 1906, when he gave up his diplomatic service and retired to manage his estates. During the First World War he served at the Russian front. He became a member of the House of Magnates in 1915. During the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 he was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks.

Their first son Dénes Siegfrid was born in Budapest on 7 September 1921. On 18 October 1941 he married Countess Antoinette Cziráky (1920-1955), daughter of László Cziráky de Dénesfalva (1876-1935) and his wife née Margit Karátsonyi de Beodra (1884-1960), with whom he had a daughter, Beatrix a year later. He was killed in action in Kiev on 12 December 1943.

In 1944 Denise left Hungary with her husband and their second son Krisztián (born 1928). They moved to Austria, then to Algeria, where József died. Krisztián moved to France with his French wife, then settled in Bonn. Both Denise and Krisztián died in Bonn in 1973.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

EXHIBITED:

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Tavaszi kiállítás és László Fülöp, Munkácsy Mihály, Pentelei Molnár János, valamit Petz Samu és Hűvös László összegyűjtött műveinek kiállítása [Spring Exhibition and Retrospectives of Philip de László, Mihály Munkácsy, János Pentelei Molnár, Samu Petz and László Hűvös], 4 May - 30 June 1925,  no. 22

LITERATURE:

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, p. 282

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 64

•DLA039-0049, letter from Géza Pauk to de László, 5 March 1925

•DLA162-0270, Pesti Hírlap, 16 May 1925, p. 5

•László, Philip de, 1934 diary, private collection, 12 July entry, pp. 97-98

•László, Philip de, January-June 1935 diary, private collection, 12 March entry, p. 60; 15 April entry, p. 90

BS 2020