12400

King Alfonso XIII of Spain 1927

Standing three-quarter length to the left, full face looking to the viewer, in the full dress uniform of the Regiment no. 4 "Pavia Húsares (Hussars), a plumed hat under his right arm and holding a pair of white gloves in his right hand, his left hand raised to his waist, his thumb tucked behind his cummerbund. King Alfonso XIII wears the Order of the Golden Fleece^[1] round his neck, the sash and insignia of the Order of Charles III, the Medal to Military Valour with its distinctive red colour, and the insignia of the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa

Oil on canvas, 158 x 99 cm (62 ¼ x 39 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1927 madrid   

Inscribed top right: S.M. EL REY D. ALFONSO. XIII

Sitters’ Book II, f. 53: Alfonso XIII. / II. Apr. 1927

Museo del Prado, Madrid

De László described his 1927 sojourn in Spain to the journalist Tibor Korda: “The day after my arrival, the Queen received me in the presence of the whole Royal Family. I was set up in the Royal Palace itself, in a comfortable studio, and I started my work straight away. The Royal Palace is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen [….] I was welcomed like an old friend and it seemed to me that I was returning to a well-known place, dear to my heart, and from where I had been away for a long time.^[2] I painted there the portraits of Don Alfonso [12400], Doña Victoria [12398], of Doña María Cristina^[3], and of the children of the Royal Family.^[4] By luck, my stay in Spain coincided precisely with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the reign of the Royal Family, which naturally made my portraits of particular interest […] As for the King, […] his speech is honest and full of enthusiasm. I had never had an interview with a King as democratic as him. His love of Spain and the Spanish people is touching, and he talks about them as if they were his children. He told me about many projects he has planned himself for the prosperity of Spain. He is a good-hearted man.”^[5]

According to Lady Rumbold [111877], the British Ambassador’s wife, de László started painting the present portrait of the King on 23 April 1927, “and when he posed him with his hand on his sword, Alfonso said ‘You want to make me like the Kaiser, but I am not a Kaiser, I am a King and a nice King!’”^[6]

In a review of the 1927 French Gallery exhibition of forty of de László’s paintings in London, the Hungarian art critic, Vilmos de Ruttkay wrote in Pesti Hírlap: “László has been working for seven weeks in the Royal Palace at Madrid. There are eleven portraits of the members of the royal family. The most important of these is the large official portrait of King Alfonso. The King is in a standing position wearing the full dress uniform of a Field Marshal. He introduced a nice relation of tones and colours, which was not an easy problem. The blue-mauve of the coat produces a certain monotony of tone – relieved though by the gold of the profuse trimmings. This monotony is not advantageous to the face which is really the centre of the picture. The artist, however, skilfully toned down the dazzling shimmer resulting from the profusion of gold, without affecting the sincerity of the portrait. The strong lines of the head, and the marked features of the face dominate the design, and the delineation of character suggests a man of heart and intellect and a Monarch fully conscious of his lofty duties. Both composition and colour scheme are felicitous; the high status of a King is symbolized in full splendour, but without ostentation.”^[7]

Two unauthorised contemporary copies of this portrait, thought to be by Nellie Harvey^[8] have thus far been traced. They are painted in watercolour and gouache and reduced to half-length, bearing forged signatures. Another contemporary half-length copy in oil has been recorded but remains untraced. In addition, three fine half-length copies in oil were made by Alfonso Hernández Noda of Granada (b.1928), two for his own pleasure and one as a commission. These three copies were made in admiration of de László’s work and are not signed.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [7925].

PROVENANCE:

•Presented by the artist to the Museo de Arte Moderno, Madrid;

•Bequeathed to the Prado Museum on the opening of the new Contemporary Art Gallery, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 1992

EXHIBITED:  

•Museo de Arte Moderno, Madrid, 12-16 May 1927^[9] 
•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1927, no. 13

•Musée Communal des Beaux-Arts, Bruges, Toison d’Or : cinq siècles d’art et d’histoire, 14 July - 30 September 1962,  p. 329, no. 340, ill.  

LITERATURE:  

•Rumbold family archive, letter from Lady Rumbold to Lady Fane, 24 April 1927

•Illustrated London News, 11 June, 1927, ill. p. 1031

•Bavaria, HRH Princess Pilar of and Major Desmond Chapman-Huston, Don Alfonso XIII, A Study of Monarchy, John Murray, London, 1931, ill. front cover and frontispiece

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 369

•Guía-Catálogo del Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, 1975, p. 466

•Balansó Juan, La Casa Real de España  Ed. Manuel García Lucero. Editorial Mirasierra, 1976, p. 241

•Rayón Fernando y José Luis Sampedro: Las joyas de las Reinas de España, Planeta,  2004

•Guías Cob. Madrid, 1929, ill., front cover

•Los Domingos de ABC^[10] supplement, 18 May 1986, front cover ill.

•Los Domingos de ABC supplement, 25 October 1987, front cover ill.

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 207

•DLA107-0153, Ruttkay, Vilmos de, review of the de László exhibition at the French Gallery in London in Pesti Hírlap, 24 June 1927

•DLA107-0145, ”Un peintre de Rois, de diplomates, et d’hommes d’Etat”, by Tibor Korda, in Excelsior, 16 July 1927

SMdeL 2014