9966

Madame Leó Lánczy, née Janka Margarete Lázár^[1] 1913

Standing three-quarter length, slightly to the left, full face, wearing an evening gown, a string of pearls and matching earrings, holding a fan

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower left: P.A. de László / LONDON. 1913 July.   

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 93: Mme Leon Lánczy  1913. 3. July.

Laib L6828 (55) / C14 (36a)  Countess Lariejo

The sitter's correspondence with the artist shows that she was extremely eager to have her portrait painted. She approached him several times with her request, which de László at first declined.^[2] Madame Lánczy persisted. When she was in London she asked to visit him^[3] and this was probably her first meeting with the artist and his family.^[4] In November 1912  she wrote to him saying that she had heard from her friend Madame de Fontenay^[5] [4468], that the artist and his family were going to spend the Christmas holidays with Madame de Fontenay near Lausanne, and Madame de Fontenay had invited Madame Lánczy to join them. Madame Lánczy wondered whether the artist would be able to paint her portrait there.^[6] De László again declined, on the grounds that he needed to rest during his holiday.^[7] He suggested that he might be able to paint her in Paris but she was reluctant to travel there because of the threat of war.^[8] She was eventually painted in London in July 1913.

Her husband paid 12,000 korona (crowns) for the picture.^[9] Shortly after its arrival in Budapest it was requested by the Műcsarnok for their annual Winter Exhibition. The sitter declined to lend it, on the basis that she had only been able to enjoy the picture for a few days.^[10]

Janka Margarete Lusztig was born on 16 July 1868 in Arad, the only daughter of Jewish parents Mór Lusztig (c. 1836-1901) and his wife Ida Schwarz (born 1848). She married firstly, Gusztáv Szászy-Schwarz (1858-1920), jurist and university professor. She had one son from this marriage, György Szászy-Schwartz, who became joint-manager of the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest and later director of the Association of Saving-Banks and Banks. The couple later divorced.

In 1904, at the age of 36, she converted to Christianity in Vienna and married the 52-year-old Leó Lánczy (formerly Lazarsfeld, 1852-1921). He had an outstanding career as a banker, developing the minor Pesti Magyar Kereskedelmi Bank into a leading industrial bank, was Managing Director of the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest (Pesti Magyar Kereskedelmi Bank), President of the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Budapesti Kereskedelmi és Iparkamara) from 1893.  Lánczy was a Member of Parliament from 1893 until 1901 and established a number of commercial and industrial firms. He was one of the main advisers of the Emperor-King Franz Joseph, and a main organiser of the Austro-Hungarian war economy during the First World War.

The Lánczys lived in a large neo-renaissance villa in the prestigious villa quarter of Pest, just off Andrássy út. It was decorated with frescoes by the eminent Hungarian painter Károly Lotz, with whom de László studied in Budapest in 1886. Mme Lánczy was reputed to be quite vain and was rumoured to have undergone a face-lift, a procedure then in its infancy. She was involved in many charities and  helped to organise International Woman Suffrage Congress in Budapest in 1913. She died on 1 August 1941, surviving her husband by 20 years.

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, p. 277.

•Halmos, Károly, Leó Lánczy, in: Sokszínű kapitalizmus (Colourful Capitalism), ed. Sebők Marcell, Budapest, 2004

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László. His Life and Art. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, p. 133

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 220

•DLA031-0005, letter from Mme Leó Lánczy to de László, 13 June [probably 1912]

•DLA031-0008, letter from Mme Leó Lánczy to de László, 16 June [probably 1912]

•DLA031-0014, letter from Mme Leó Lánczy to de László, 27 November [probably 1912]

•DLA031-0009, letter from Mme Leó Lánczy to de László, 4 December [probably 1912]

•DLA031-0004, letter from Mme Leó Lánczy to de László, 16 August [probably 1913]

•DLA031-0003, letter from Leó Lánczy to de László, 30 September 1913

•DLA031-0010, letter from Mme Leó Lánczy to de László, 10 November [probably 1913]

•de László Appointment Book 1913, 2-3 July

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection, 4 July entry, p. 91

BS 2016