8768

Madame Louis-René de Gramont, styled comtesse de Gramont, née Antoinette de Rochechouart-Mortemart 1921

Half-length to the left, her head turned in three quarter profile to the right, wearing a black chiffon wrap around her bare shoulders, an emerald and diamond bandeau in her hair and her right hand raised to her breast

Oil on canvas, 85 x 62.9 cm (33 ½ x 24 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / Paris 1921, XII 

Sitters’ Book II, f. 41: Antoinette de Gramont / 1924

Private Collection

De László was particularly close to the sitter's brother-in-law Armand, 12th duc de Gramont [11801], an artist as well as a distinguished scientist and man of letters, who would lend de László his studio during his frequent working visits to Paris. The studio was in his home at 42 avenue Henri Martin and it is likely that the present portrait was painted there.

This portrait is a particularly sensitive one. The transparency of the oil glazes that form the draped black chiffon both make an exquisite contrast with, and at the same time emphasize, the sensuous lines of  the sitter’s delicate shoulders and neck. There exists another portrait of the sitter, which appears as a study for the present one, or which could have been the first version of this portrait, rejected by de László at an early stage of its execution [8770]. Although the portrait in question is dated 1931, de László’s signature, in pencil, would indicate that that painting was inscribed after its completion and perhaps dated incorrectly.

Antoinette Marie Virginie Victurienne de Rochechouart-Mortemart was born in St-Jean de Beauregard on 29 July 1893, the daughter of René, comte de Mortemart (1867-1941) and Elisabeth de Riquet de Caraman (1871-1937). On 3 August 1916, she married Louis-René, styled comte de Gramont, whom she had met while he was convalescing after being seriously wounded in the trenches during the First World War. Together they had four children, Philippe (born 1917), Marguerite (born 1920), René (born 1927) and François (born 1931). The sitter died in Neuilly on 10 September 1972.

CC 2008