4623

Baroness Robert de Rothschild, née Gabrielle Nelly Beer 1913

Half-length in profile to the left, face turned to the viewer, wearing a dark satin coat with a fox fur collar, her left hand raised to her breast, against a background of red drapery

Oil on canvas, 97 x 64.8 cm (34 ¼ x 25 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: P A de LÁSZLÓ / 1913

Laib L6814(55) / C23(22)  

NPG Album 1903-14, p. 42

NPG Album 1912-1916, p. 24, where labelled: Baroness Robert de Rothschild / London / 1913

Sitters’ Book I, f. 88: Nelly de Rothschild / 24 Juillet 1913 / Londres

Sitters’ Book I, f. 89: Nelly de Rothschild / 10 juin 1911

Private Collection

De László painted Baroness Robert de Rothschild again in 1922 [4625] and a rejected composition for the present picture has recently been discovered [112191]. Though she had first signed the Sitters’ Book in 1911 it is likely she had only accompanied her husband, Baron Robert [111810], to the artist’s studio at that time.^[1] No portrait of the sitter of a 1911 date is known. The artist also painted the Baroness’s son Élie [4893] and daughter Cécile [110592], and many other members of the de Rothschild family.

Gabrielle Nelly Beer was born 28 September 1886 in Paris, the daughter of Edmond Beer and his wife Alice Kohn, and a great-great niece of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. On 6 March 1907, she married Baron Robert Philippe Gustave de Rothschild, with whom she had two sons and two daughters: Diane (born 1907), Alain (born 1910), Cécile (born 1913), and Élie (born 1917). Nelly’s elder sister Marie-Louise married Lionel Nathan Rothschild (1882-1942) from the English branch of the family.

Baroness Rothschild and her husband lived at 23 Avenue de Marigny, the family mansion in Paris, and at Château de Laversine near Chantilly.^[2] She and her husband were great patrons of the arts and particularly of music. The German sopranos Elisabeth Schumann (1888-1952), Lotte Lehman (1888-1976), and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006) all performed at their Paris home and the pianist Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982) made his debut outside Poland there. The sitter was renowned as a hostess and considered a great beauty.

During the Second World War the Baroness escaped from France to America with her husband and two daughters. Her two sons served with the cavalry regiment 11èmes Cuirassiers and both spent time as prisoners of war in Germany.

The sitter died in New York on 8 January 1945.

LITERATURE:

•Colucci, Carlo-Waldemar, “Nuovi Ritratti di Ph. A. de László,” Vita d’Arte, Ann VI, Vol. XII, n˚ 70 (October 1913), p.116, ill.

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 282

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 91

KF 2013