110714

RECTO 

Madame Christian Satzger von Bálványos, née Elisabeth Josefa von Romako 1906

Seated three quarter-length to the left in a dining chair, three-quarter face looking to the left, wearing a grey dress with a black lace shawl, black choker and pearl necklace, pearl earrings, her left hand raised to her chin, showing a ring and simple gold bracelet, all against a grey background

Oil on board, 79 x 58.3 cm (31 ⅛ x 23 in.)

Inscribed lower right, recto: F.E.László / 1906

Private Collection

Elisabeth Josefa von Romako was born in the Austrian naval town of Pola (now Pula in Croatia) on 16 September 1858, the daughter of Josef Ritter von Romako (1828-1882) and his wife Amalia Jansen. Her father, the brother^[1] of the painter Anton Romako (1832-1889), was Inspector of Naval Construction for the Imperial Austrian Fleet and an important naval architect.

On 11 January 1879 she married Christian Satzger von Bálványos, whose family, originally from Germany, had settled in Vienna, developed a sugar industry and been ennobled in Hungary, taking the name of one of their estates there, Bálványos. They had one daughter, Christa, and three sons. Her husband Christian died aged only thirty-five on 7 March 1892. Their second son, Géza, married Marie Friedmann, the daughter of Rose Friedmann of whom a sketch by de László [110715] remains in the same collection. The present painting was long thought by the descendants of the sitter to be a later portrait of Rose Friedmann; the apparent physiognomic differences were explained by the unfinished state of the portrait of Rose. The abandoned sketch verso of the present portrait, however, shows that de László had drawn the sitter’s eyelids distinctly from the very first sitting, while the hooded eyelids of de László’s  head sketch of Rose Friedmann can also be recognised in Klimt’s portrait of her.

Elisabeth Josefa Satzger died in Talhof in Upper Austria in 1942.

Verso is an abandoned portrait of the sitter [112285].

CWS 2006