4502

Antoine XII-Armand, duc de Guiche 1902

Standing three-quarter length in profile to the left, three-quarter face, wearing hunting dress, his hands behind his back and holding his hat

Oil on board, 73.7 x 48.3 cm (29 x 19 in.)

Inscribed lower left: Souvenir amical / de Vallière 1902 / XII / 9 László F.E. [pencil]

Sitters’ Book  I, opp. f. 60: Armand de Gramont, duc de Guiche

Private Collection

The present portrait was painted during de László's first visit to the Château de Vallière, the de Gramont family home in the Oise valley,^[1] where he went at the request of the sitter’s father, Antoine XI-Agénor, 11th duc de Gramont, to paint a pair of large family group portraits. De László spent three months at Vallière in order to complete his commission, and painted a great number of studies, most of which he offered to the members of the family as mementos. In this three-quarter length study, de László presents the young duc de Guiche wearing hunting dress, as Master of the Hunt at Vallière. It was no doubt executed at great speed, but completely captures the dashing and aristocratic elegance of the sitter.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [11801].

EXHIBITED:        

•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, Exhibition of Works by László Fülöp, April 1907, no. 86

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur. 6-22 January 2004, no.  29

LITERATURE:        

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

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London 2004, pp. 92-3

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

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

•DLA140-0155, Montesquiou-Fezansac, Robert (de), “Un portraitiste lyrique, Philipp Laszlô”, L’Art et les artistes, Revue d’art des deux mondes, issue 15, 15 June 1906, II, p. 100-01, p. 100, ill.

CC & CWS 2010