4852

Study portrait

Comtesse Robert de Pourtalès, née Marie Elisabeth van Ryck van Rietwyk 1914

Head and shoulders in profile to the left, seen from behind, a white dress just indicated with a wreath of laurel leaves in her auburn hair

Oil on board, 71 x 51.5 cm (28 x 20 in.)

Inscribed lower right: Portrait study of Countess de Pourtalès / London, 1914, Oct.4 / P.A. de László

Inscribed verso by the artist on the back board: Painted in one sitting / P A de L

Private Collection

This is one of five portraits de László painted of comtesse de Pourtalès. The first, more formal portrait, was made in Paris in January 1914 [4848] and the artist asked her to sit for him again in September and October 1914. He made the present picture and three further study portraits for his own pleasure of painting: [7000] [4854] and [4850] which de László presented to the sitter in thanks. He has inscribed on the verso that the present portrait was completed in one sitting, which would typically be two to three hours.

Gold laurel wreaths feature with some regularity in de László’s portraiture, perhaps with greatest effect in his 1908 portrait of the Duchess of Portland [4417]. Mrs John Leigh was painted with a green laurel in a composition almost identical to the present portrait in 1915 [6217].

PROVENANCE:

In the possession of the artist on his death

LITERATURE:  

•DLA089-0058, The Lady, 24 February 1916

•Owen Rutter, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 282

KF 2021