111172

Felicián Zách and his Daughter Klára 1895

 Felicián Zách stands by a table, looking to the right, his daughter kneels weeping at his feet, looking up at him and holding her father’s coat with both hands, in an interior

Oil on canvas, 190 x 240 cm, (74 ⅞ x 94 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. / 1895

Déri Múzeum, Debrecen, Hungary

De László painted few history pictures in his career, but decided on the subject of Felicián Zách and His Daughter Klára to exhibit at the 1896 Millennium Exhibition in Budapest. This is his first interpretation of the subject before deciding on a portrait format for the finished picture [11229], which focuses the viewer’s attention on the intensity of emotion in the interaction between father and daughter. It is his most successful history picture, but the artist had already established himself as one of Hungary’s most accomplished portrait painters after receiving his first royal commission to paint Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria [3937] and his family in 1894.  

The present picture was in the collection of Aladár Fónagy, until auctioned in 1929 at his sale at the Ernst Museum, Budapest. Aladár Fónagy was an important Hungarian collector of the early 20th century. He moved to Budapest from Upper Hungary to work as an apprentice for Adolf Jónás in the timber trade. Little is known of his life but he was extremely successful and made a fortune, acquiring the nickname the “wood king.” In 1907 he co-founded the Credit Institute of Hungarian Wood Traders. It is probable that he lost his fortune in the depression of the 1920’s, which forced him to auction his collection in 1929. De László’s preparatory study for the 1899 portrait of Comtesse Jean de Castellane [111229] was also included in that sale.

PROVENANCE:

The Fónagy Collection, until 1929;

Arany Bika Restaurant, Debrecen, until 1951

EXHIBITED:            

•Fónagy Sale, Ernst Museum, 1929, no. 596: ZÁCH FELICIÁN (Felizian Zách). Jelezve (Bezeichnet): László F.E. 1895. Vászon (Leinwand).

LITERATURE:

•Schleinitz, O.von, Künstler-Monographien, Bielefeld und Leipzig, 1913, p. 35

•Ungarische Zukunft, July 1918

•Rutter, Owen. Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, pp. 150-151

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 45, ill. 22

•DLA023-0150, letter from de László to László Siklóssy

•DLA059-0006, letter from László Siklóssy to de László, 14 September 1935.

•DLA loose material, ill.

BS 2018