111093

UNTRACED

Dr Max ‘Miksa’ Falk 1901

Head and shoulders slightly to the left, looking full face to the viewer, wearing evening dress, a white shirt with the Commander’s Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen round his neck, a coat with fur collar draped over his shoulders

Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 49: Dr. Falk Miksa [among signatures dated 1901]

On 31 March 1901 de László wrote to his friend Bishop Fraknói [111904]: “I had so many obligations and was busy from morning to late at night … I have just today finished three of my portraits – of Szapáry [111159], Andrássy [110812] and Falk, for the spring exhibition. The first two of these have been in my studio for years, and I am glad that they are being taken away tomorrow afternoon – but during the morning, Prime Minister Kálmán Széll will see them all here.”^[1] 

According to the newspaper Pester Lloyd, where Falk had been editor since 1867: “The King viewed Philipp [sic] László’s exhibited portraits with particular interest. In front of the portrait of the Member of Parliament Max Falk the King said ‘Is it not true this portrait was easy to paint?’ ‘Yes, Your Majesty’ replied the artist, ‘the face is a very characteristic one.’ ‘The portrait is excellent, the similarity a great one. And how well Falk looks!’ remarked the Monarch.”^[2] Emperor Franz Joseph [12700] had known Falk for many years as he had been engaged to teach Hungarian to his wife, the Empress Elisabeth [7857].

In 1902 the portrait was exhibited at the Künstlerhaus Annual Exhibition in Vienna. Ludwig Hevesi,^[3] the art critic for Pester Lloyd, declared he preferred de László’s portrait of Falk to that of Pope Leo XIII [4509], although there could be an element of flattery in his judgement as the sitter was his employer. “The Falk portrait is similar but shows a broader range of colour; there is contrast between the face and the lights around the forehead and the grey hair; like sunlight on the snow of age; I prefer this one to the portrait of the Pope; it is freer, like a study, with more temperament; it is an entertaining painting but yet simple.”^[4] Another critic compared the portrait to that of the German Chancellor [4485]: “The Falk portrait is very good; as striking as Hohenlohe’s portrait with that piercing look which made the artist famous.”^[5]

De László probably got to know Falk through his friend Gábor de Térey [11881], who wrote regularly for Pester Lloyd. A preparatory oil study [111899] for the present portrait remains untraced. De László also painted the sitter’s wife Klementine [111547] in 1901, possibly as a pendant.

Miksa ‘Max’ Falk was born in Pest 7 October 1828, the son of József Falk and his wife Borbála Preisach. As a journalist he worked for the German-language literary daily, Der Ungar during the first few months of the 1848 Revolution and in September that year moved to Vienna where he wrote for the Österreichische Zeitung, the Wanderer and the Hungarian Pesti Napló. He criticised absolutism in his articles, but at the same time published conservative articles anonymously supporting Viennese politics.

He was a close friend of Count István Széchenyi (1791-1860) and published Széchenyi's political writings. In 1861 Falk was prosecuted for printing an article demanding the restoration of the Hungarian constitution and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. In the same year Falk was sponsored by the liberal leader Ferenc Deák [111447] for membership in the National Academy of Sciences. In 1866 he became Empress Elizabeth’s Hungarian language and history teacher. After the Compromise of 1867, in which he had played a significant advisory role, and by which Hungary recovered its independence within the Habsburg monarchy, Falk moved back to Budapest on the recommendation of the Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy and became the chief editor of Pester Lloyd. This was the most important German-language daily in Hungary and represented the interests of Ferenc Deák’s Hungarian Liberal Party. Falk retained control of the paper until his death, thus becoming the most influential and wealthiest editor and publisher in Hungary. Falk sat in parliament for ten years and published many works on the subject of Hungarian history.

On 22 April 1852 Falk married in Vienna Ernestine Cäcilia Ludowika von Lachmayer, thought to be the daughter of Ludwig von Lachmayer, a former lieutenant in the Royal Hungarian Noble Guard. Four months before his marriage Falk was received into the Roman Catholic Church.^[6] The Lachmayers were an old Catholic family ennobled in 1797 and likely required his conversion from Judaism for the marriage to take place.

The date of death of his first wife is unknown but on 7 September 1854 he married in Vienna, Klementina Barbara Schindler (1836/7-1908). The couple had three sons, Frigyes (born 1860), Ede (born 1864), Ernő (born 1870) and five daughters, Klementina, Sarolta, Aurélia, Ottília and Leopoldina. Falk died on 10 September 1908, surviving his wife by only a few months. Their marriage was a happy one and the obituary in Pester Lloyd compared them to Philemon and Baucis, the generous and loving couple who feature in a moralizing tale from Ovid.

PROVENANCE:

Pester Lloyd Company

EXHIBITED:

•Műcsarnok, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Tavaszi kiállítás [Spring Exhibition], 1901, no. 133 (property of Pester Lloyd Company)

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Artworks from Private Collections, 1902^[7]

•Künstlerhaus, Vienna, 1902, no. 227

•Műcsarnok, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, 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. 36 (property of Pester Lloyd)

LITERATURE:        

•Tahi, Anthony, ‘A Hungarian Painter: Filip E. László’, The Studio, XXIV (1902), p. 20

•Pester Lloyd. 23 March 1902, p. 2

•Pester Lloyd, 24 April 1901, p. 3

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 42

•DLA029-0144, letter from Elek Lippich to de László, 23 September 1902

•DLA044-0057, letter from de László to Vilmos Fraknói, 31 March 1901

•DLA162-0221, Pesti Hírlap, 14 April 1901, p. 6

•DLA162-0467, Pesti Hírlap, 28 April 1901, p. 6

•DLA162-0440, Pesti Hírlap, 25 May 1901, p. 31

•DLA090-0199, article (description of painting at the Vienna Künstlerhaus exhibition), [undated, presumably 1902]

•DLA090-0265, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst - Vol. 37, Leipzig, 1902, p. 411

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

CWS & BS 2020