11881

Doctor Gábor de Térey 1907

Seated half length in an armchair, full face, wearing a dark suit and holding an open book on his lap, all against a brown background

Oil on board, 69 x 74 cm (27 ⅛ x 29 ⅛ in.)

Sitters’ Book I, f. 5: Dr. Térey Gábor 6 / Apr 99.

Sitters’ Book I, f. 23: Gábor de Térey [Rotheneuf, 22 August 1902]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 57: Dr Térey Gábor [probably 26 February 1902]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 66: Dr Térey Gábor 13 [Dec.] 903^[1] Am Geburtstage des Meisters [On the Master’s birthday] – Dr Gábor de Térey 1/VI/1904.^[2]

Magyar Nemzeti Galéria (Hungarian National Gallery), Budapest

The art historian Gábor de Térey was one of de László’s closest friends. Having first met him at her wedding in 1900, Lucy de László wrote of him two years later: “He improves on acquaintance, is a refined and considerate man with nice manners. There is much more English about him than Hungarian.”^[3] According to Lucy’s diary,^[4] de László had already made a portrait of Térey while they were on holiday together in Brittany in August 1902 [untraced]. In a letter to de László dated 26 December 1904 Térey writes that his mother “was so pleased about my picture that she started to cry”^[5] and this possibly refers to another untraced oil portrait which was exhibited at the Nemzeti Szalon [National Salon] in Budapest in 1907 and dated 1904 according to the catalogue of that exhibition.^[6]

De László also made a drawing of Térey, again while on holiday on the Schliersee in Bavaria, in 1906 [111317]. The present portrait was painted in Vienna in the spring of 1907 and is unusual among de László’s portraits in its horizontal format. In an undated letter written soon after Térey’s return to Budapest from Vienna he describes his pleasure at having sat to de László: “You have given me great joy by painting my portrait, it will be a delightful remembrance for my dear ones when I am no longer around. Edith [his wife] is very excited to see it. I hope Löwy [the Viennese art photographer] will send it to me as soon as he has finished with the reproduction. I have renewed admiration for you; with what speed you have painted it and those fine tones and noble conception – it will certainly be well received everywhere.”^[7]

Soon afterwards de László and his family moved to London and in May 1907 de László held his first one-man show in England, at the Fine Art Society, which was reviewed by Térey in an extended illustrated article published in The Studio magazine which did much to establish de László’s reputation in England.

Gábor de Térey was born in Dárda in the County of Baranya in southern Hungary (now Croatia) on 9 February 1864, the only son of Pál de Térey (1831-1883) and his English wife, née Mary Norton (1837-1921).^[8] His father, having taken an active role as a major in the cavalry during the Hungarian Uprising of 1848/9, returned to Hungary after a decade of exile in England to take up farming at Promontor (Budafok) outside Budapest before becoming Member of Parliament for the County of Baranya in the 1860s. Following his early death when Gábor was nineteen, his widow married the Swiss writer Baron Conrad Pestalozzi^[9] and thereafter spent much of her time in Switzerland before settling in Brighton. Gábor studied art history in Geneva, Basle (under Jakob Burkhardt) and London. While in England he met and in 1888 married in Cornwall his first wife Mabel Gatley (b. 1867).^[10] A son, Laczi, was born in 1889, followed by a second son, Pali, in 1893 but the marriage ended in divorce.^[11] 

In 1891 Térey moved to Strasbourg where he graduated and published his first books: on Dürer in Venice^[12] and on the collection of relics of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg.^[13] From 1894 he lectured at the University of Freiburg on medieval and recent art history. While in Freiburg he met his second wife Edith Müller (1877-1929), the daughter of Karl Müller, the local municipal chief engineer, and herself a writer. They married on 2 July 1898. A son, Benno, was born in 1902.

In 1896 Térey returned to Hungary, joining the staff of the National Gallery, and it was probably around this time that he got to know de László through their mutual friend, de László’s mentor Elek de Lippich [111102]. A close friendship developed between the young painter and the academic which continued and intensified over the next 20 years. An extensive surviving correspondence from Térey to de László testifies to the deep respect he had for the painter and the great support he gave him, especially during de László’s periods of doubt in his own ability. In 1900 Térey and Lippich travelled to Ireland to act as witnesses at the wedding of de László to Lucy Guinness.

From 1904 to 1926 Térey was Chief Curator of the Old Masters collection of the Museum of Fine Art in Budapest during which time he acquired many important works for the museum. Having founded the museum's collection of prints and drawings, his re-hanging of the Old Masters Collection and subsequent publication of the first scholarly catalogue of the collection raised the renown of the Museum of Fine Arts to an international level. Among his many published works he is also remembered for his two monographs on the German painter Hans Baldung Grien.^[14]

Gábor de Térey died after a short illness in the spa town of Baden near Vienna on 23 April 1927. His widow committed suicide two years later.

Gábor de Térey’s reputation as a distinguished and influential art historian extended far beyond the borders of Hungary. He was honorary member of the Royal Belgian Academy of Fine Arts and was decorated for his services to scholarship in Bavaria and Prussia, as well as by the Grand Duke of Baden. In its obituary of Térey, the Burlington Magazine wrote that he “was a very loveable personality and he will be missed… He was fond of English scholarship and of the English attitude to art and to life.”^[15] In 2006/7 the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest held an exhibition to celebrate his achievement.

PROVENANCE:  

By descent in the family;

Presented to the Hungarian National Gallery by a member of the Térey family from New York, 1964

EXHIBITED:        

•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, László Fülöp műveinek gyűjteményes kiállítása [Exhibition of Works by László Fülöp], April 1907, no. 70

LITERATURE:          

•Térey, Dr. Gabriel von, “A Hungarian Portrait Painter: Philip de László,” The Studio, Vol. 40, No. 170, 1907, pp. 254-67, ill. p. 267

•Nemzeti Szalon: László Fülöp művei, Budapest: Légrády Testvérek, 1907, ill., p. 23

•Vasárnapi Újság, Vol. 54, Issue 15, Budapest, 14 April 1907, ill., p. 292

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 224

•Radványi, Orsolya, Térey Gábor: Egy konzervatív újító a Szépművészeti Múzeumban, Budapest 2006, ill. cover

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 93

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 62

•DLA124-0002, Lucy de László’s diary, 9 September 1902

•Laszlo, Lucy de, diary 1902-1911, private collection, 9 September 1902 entry, p. 32

•DLA066-0114, letter from Gábor de Térey to de László, 26 December 1904

•NSzL149-0010, letter from de László to Lajos Ernst, 21 March 1907

•DLA066-0093, letter from Gábor de Térey to de László, Spring 1907

CWS 2008