3200

Queen Marie of Romania, née Princess Marie of Edinburgh 1924

Half-length turned slightly to the right and looking to the left, wearing a gold coloured evening dress under a chiffon wrap of the same colour; the wrap hung from a crown of gold set with large sapphires, secured under her chin by a string of pearls from which hangs a large drop pearl pendant, a long jewelled necklace with a large sapphire pendant and pearl drop earrings, all against a dark background

Oil on canvas, 92 x 70 cm (37 ½ x 27 ½ in.)    

Inscribed lower right: de László / LONDON 1924.V.  

Laib L11570(799) / C24(28)

Sitters’ Book II, f. 40: Marie / 1924

Muzeul National Peleş, Sinaia, Romania    

De László first met the sitter in Vienna in 1899 when she was still Crown Princess Marie of Romania, though she did not commission a portrait until she came to London on an official state visit in 1924.^[1] She visited de László’s studio on 21 May and recorded the sittings in her diary in great detail: “He wants of course to make something that would stand out from all he has done… he wants to have it for his exhibition in June. So he asked me to put on my Russian sapphire and diamond diadem,^[2] he draped me in gold, with a sort of golden veil on my head, a marvellous harmony of gold in gold with only eyes and the sapphires a blue touch in the whole. He is a stupendously quick worker and it is wonderful to see him work, he is [so] full of delight when he begins a picture which enchants him that one feels he would like to shout with joy and excitement.”^[3] 

“I sat heroically with my heavy diadem on my head for two hours before and two hours after lunch, but the result is stupendous. I never in my life have seen a man to paint like that – it is almost witchcraft. Being hard up for time he did not lose any time in drawing in his picture first, he just painted it. The beauty of the colouring is marvellous and he seems to take hold of the best in the face and to bring it out with startling intensity…it’s like a living presence in the room, add to the striking ‘get up’ we combined with our double good taste and you have really a great work of art before you…This portrait will be a recompense for the artistic torture endured by being so often painted by bunglers of all nationalities…he painted as one who had magic in his fingers, a human blessed by the gods when he laid down his brush and the picture was finished and it rose up before us all a living, pulsing, alive woman, in a gold dress and veil…We all shook hands and congratulated each other mutually, like after the birth of a child in whom many hopes concentrated.”^[4]

The present portrait was hung with a smaller version of the Queen Mother Helen’s portrait [4221] in the Cerkez drawing room at the Cotroceni Palace^[5] and the artist wrote to the sitter that he had seen a photograph of it there. When de László visited Bucharest in 1936 to fulfil a commission for King Carol II, he painted the Queen in mourning [3208], which she hung with the earlier picture: “the expression is sad and thoughtful, and I have hung it opposite the brilliant Queen of ten years ago – all in gold, with the crown on my head, and the contrast tells its own tale.”^[6] 

The Queen was a legendary beauty and in February 1925 this portrait was reproduced by Pond’s Extract Company in a magazine probably produced for their shareholders.

De László completed four portraits of and two preparatory works of Queen Marie during his two-month visit to Bucharest in 1936. A formal full-length portrait seated [3211] was a pendant for a posthumous portrait of her husband King Ferdinand [4217]. A formal three-quarter length [2961] of the Queen in full royal regalia, together with a preparatory drawing [111639] and oil sketch [3204] remained unfinished and were in the possession of the artist until his death. A half-length portrait of the Queen in traditional Romanian dress [3207] and the already mentioned half-length in mourning [3208] were also completed.

During the same stay in Bucharest de László also completed a formal full-length of King Carol II [4220], for which there is a preparatory oil sketch [3220] and two half-length study portraits of the sitter in naval uniform [3222] and hunting dress [3225], a half-length portrait of the sitter's son, Prince Michael [4218] with a preparatory oil sketch [3231], two portraits of the King’s mistress Madame Lupescu [3237] & [3233], for which there is a preparatory oil sketch [3237].

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [2961].

PROVENANCE:  

The Cotroceni Palace, The Pelişor Palace, The Peleş Museum

On Loan to the Cotroceni Palace Museum, 1989-2000

EXHIBITED:  

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1924, no. 13

•Jean Charpentier Hotel, Paris, Exhibition of One Hundred Years of French Life, 1929, no. 845

•Peleş Castle, Queen Maria and the Art Nouveau Style, September-November 2000

•National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Cartier: The Exhibition, 30 March-22 July 2018

•Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, 2024, no. 6

LITERATURE:

•The Times, 24 May 1924, p. 18, ill.  

•The Art News, Saturday, 14 June 1924

•The Times, 25 June 1924

•The Studio, Vol. 88 (1924), p. 94

•Westminster Gazette, 26 June 1924

•Daily Mail, 26 July 1924

•Pond’s Extract Company Magazine, February 1925, p.12, ill.: Toilet Goods. The Message of a Beautiful Queen / to More than Twenty Million Women 

•The New York Times, 1 March 1925, ill.

•The New York Times, 15 November 1925, ill.

•Roumania, Queen Marie of, Diaries, Vol. III 148 rola 148, pp. 99-100, 103-105, 148, Vol III 195 rola 489, p. 80-81, National Archives, Bucharest

•László, Philip de, letters to Queen Marie of Roumania, dated 1 and 12 March 1936, Arhivele Nationale, Bucuresti, fond Regina Maria personale, V4673 & V4674

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 175, 352- 3, 376

•Bolitho, Hector, A Biographer’s Notebook, Longmans, Green & Co., London, New York, Toronto, 1950, p. 45

•Elsberry, Terence, Marie of Romania, The Intimate Life of a Twentieth Century Queen, Cassel, London, 1973, pp. 263, 265

•Fotescu, Diana, ed., Americans and Queen Marie of Roumania: A Selection of Documents, The Center for Romanian Studies, 1998, pp. 77, 85

•Pakula, Hannah, Ultima Romantica: Viata Reginei Maria (The Last Romantic: Queen Marie of Romania, translated into Romanian by Sanda-Ileana Racoviceanu), Bucharest, Romania, 1999, front cover, ill.

•Princes d’Europe & d’Ailleurs, La revue d’histoire et d’actualité des familles royales, October, November, December 2000, ill. p. 37

•Marcus, Della L., Her Eternal Crown: Queen Marie of Romania and the Baha’I Faith, George Ronald Publishers Ltd., 2001, cover, ill.

•De Laszlo, Sandra ed, & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, A Brush With Grandeur, Paul Holberton, London 2004, pp. 32-33, fig. 21 [and Pond’s Extract Magazine, op. cit., p. 196, fig. 91]

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 186-187

•Cluzel, Jean-Paul, Cartier: Style and History, Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais, Paris, 2013, p. 93, ill.

•Chaille, Francois, Cartier Royal: High Jewelry and Precious Objects, Flammarion S.A., Paris, 2014, p. 25, ill.

•Munn, Geoffrey, Wartski: The First One Hundred and Fifty Years, Antique Collectors Club, 2015, p. 182, ill.

•Young-Sanchez, Margret, Cartier: The Exhibition, National Gallery Of Australia, 2018, p. 209, ill.

•Știrbulescu, C., The Chronicle of an Indelible Exhibition, Muzeul Național 33, 2021, pp. 83-114, ill. p. 104

•Ion, Narcis Dorin, Maria a României, Portretul unei mari regine [Queen Marie of Romania, Portrait of a Great Queen], vol. 1, Editura Măiastra, Târgu Jiu, 2022, p. 264, ill.

•Ion, Narcis Dorin, Maria a României, Portretul unei mari regine [Queen Marie of Romania, Portrait of a Great Queen], vol. 2, Editura Măiastra, Târgu Jiu, 2022, front cover, ill.

•Ion, Narcis Dorin, Comorile Peleșului [The Treasures of Peleș], Editura Magic Print, Onești, 2022, p. 118, ill.

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance,

Blackmore, 2024, pp. 22, 26, 36, 51, 52, 146, 153, ill. pp. 25, 50

•DLA014-0006, letter from Sir Eugen Millington-Drake to de László, 3 May 1921

•DLA107-0277, letter from de László to W.P. Winchester [The French Gallery / Wallis & Son], 17 May 1924

SMdeL & KF 2014