3336

RECTO

Study portrait

Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, née Duchess Elisabeth Valerie in Bavaria 1925

Head and shoulders in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing a pearl necklace

Oil on canvas, 68.5 x 51.5 cm (28 x 20 ⅓ in.)

Inscribed lower right: The Queen of the Belgians / 1925 VII / P. A. de L.

Sitters’ Book II, f. 45: Elizabeth / Welbeck / August 4th 1925

Studio Inventory, 1938, p. 25 (140): The Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians. Painted in London.

Private Collection

This is one of three portraits de László painted of Queen Elisabeth in 1925. The Studio Inventory made after the artist’s death in 1937 notes that the present work was painted in London, however, it is probable that it and a small head study [112461] were painted at Welbeck Abbey at the same time as [7870].

The most finished of the three portraits [7870] is inscribed Welbeck Abbey, home of the 6th Duke of Portland [4442], one of de László’s most important patrons and a close friend. The artist was a guest during Queen Elisabeth’s stay there in 1925 and he painted her, the Duchess of Portland [4423], and a self portrait [11189] which he presented to the family to hang in the ‘László Room’ named in his honour.

After the death of the sitter’s husband King Albert in a climbing accident in 1934, de László offered to paint a posthumous portrait of him. One [111346] was painted in London before he travelled to the Royal Palace at Laeken to paint [7864] [111346] with the assistance of Queen Elisabeth.  

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [7870].

Verso is a preparatory study for a double portrait of the sisters Archduchess Maria-Anna and Archduchess Henriette of Austria-Teschen, painted in 1905. De László regularly kept and reused his artist boards. This could cause some confusion and amusement as it did for his portrait of Princess Victoria [10303]. When her father King Edward VII [7705] inspected the portrait in progress at Buckingham Palace he remarked upon the study of Count Albert Mensdorff [112197] on the verso, much to the mortification of the artist.    

PROVENANCE:

In the possession of the artist on his death;

Patrick de Laszlo, his fourth son

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 357, 374-5

•Portland, The Duke of, Men, Women & Things, Memories of the Duke of Portland, K.G., G.C.V.O., London, 1937, pp. 221-2

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 193

•DLA162-0287, Pesti Hírlap, 18 August 1925, p. 7

KF 2020