7442

Study portrait

Jonkheer Louis Antoine van Loon 1910

Half-length to the left, almost full-face and looking to the viewer, wearing scarlet dress uniform with decorations, a glove on his left hand, a crest painted in the top left hand corner of the picture

Oil on board, 93 x 72.5 cm (36 ⅝ x 28 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: P.A. László. 1910 / LONDON

NPG Album, 1903-14, f. 65: Jonkheer Louis van Loon / 1910 / Holland

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 53: Louis van Loon [no date but under the inscription written by his wife: La Forêt 8 Aug 1901]

Museum van Loon, The Netherlands

Jonkheer Louis Antoine van Loon was born in 1862 into an old Amsterdam mayoral and trading family which had become active in banking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was brought up at the family home, Hydepark, near Doorn, which his parents, Hendrik van Loon and Louise Borski, had built. He spent most of his time in the country at Doorn where he was elected to the town council and the county council. While wintering as usual in Cannes he had met Adèle Françoise Tachard (1864-1937), and they married in 1889.

Louis and his wife planned and built ‘La Forêt’ in the grounds of Hydepark. Originally, intended as a modest hunting lodge ‘La Forêt’ grew to one hundred rooms with, unusually, underground quarters for thirty servants, a considerable staff by Dutch standards. The house was famous for its large, beautiful stables and fine carriages (some of which are still in the museum) all in yellow and black, the family colours. Louis’s many interests included driving horses and carriages. Adèle and Louis had five children.^[1] According to a member of the family each time a child was born a wing was added to the house. ‘La Forêt’ was burnt to the ground shortly after the Second World War. Louis van Loon died in 1953.

In 1910, nine years after his wife Adèle was painted by de László [7409], Louis also sat to the painter. On 28 September Adèle wrote to de László that her husband wished to know if he would have time in early November to paint his portrait, as they would be in London then. They were interested in a study portrait such as that of Baron van Tuyll [7531] or Adriana van Riemsdijk [110706].^[2] The most remarkable feature of this portrait is the costume worn by Louis van Loon. Unlike in other countries, de László’s Dutch patrons did not tend to pose in uniforms or regalia. Louis van Loon was painted in the scarlet uniform of the Knights of Utrecht.

Upon receipt of the portrait, Adèle van Loon again wrote to de László telling him that the painting had arrived safely and had been given a prominent place in the dining room, lit by electric light. She praised him for having produced a marvellously spontaneous portrait that captured her husband’s demeanour most pleasantly. She was fascinated by the painterly differences between her portrait and that of her husband, each of which was so distinct and yet each a masterpiece. The latter reminded her of Frans Hals and Sargent, but without the exaggerated mannerisms that she objected in these artists.^[3]

According to the sitter’s account books, Louis paid some five hundred pounds for his wife’s portrait and two hundred for his own, with the equivalent of nine pounds for the frame, which was made in London.^[4] This portrait is visible in the photograph of the dining room at La Forêt in Ruud Dek.^[5] Another version of the present portrait, according to the studio inventory,^[6] was destroyed on the late artist’s instructions to his executors, on 17 November 1947, with other work that was considered unworthy of his reputation.

EXHIBITED:                

•Agnew’s Gallery, London, 1911, n° 22

•Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, De László in Holland, Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), 3 March -5 June 2006, n° 24    

LITERATURE:                   

•The Onlooker, 4 March 1911, ill. p. 427

•Museum: Revista Mensual de Arte Español Antiguo y Moderno y de la Vida Artistica Contemporanea, 3rd year, number 8, 1913, ill., p. 302

•Grever, Tonko and Annemieke Heuft (Sandra de Laszlo, British ed.), De László in Holland: Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2006, pp. 9, 31, 35, 37, 45, 46, 55, 56, 59, 60, 78, ill., n° 24

•Lith, Wendy van, Valentine Rijsterborgh and Rosalie Sloof, Mode Bij Van Loon, Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, 2016, p. 58, ill. pp. 5, 58

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 201

•DLA087-0045, letter from Louis van Loon to de László, 20 November 1901

•DLA087-0058, telegram from Louis van Loon to de László, 27 June 1903

•DLA087-0050, letter from Adèle van Loon to de László, 28 September 1910

•DLA087-0056, letter from Adèle van Loon to de László, (1910/1911?)

•László, Lucy de, 1911 diary, private collection, p. 185

CWS 2006