112118

UNTRACED

Preparatory work

Max Egon II Fürst zu Fürstenberg 1899

Standing three-quarter length slightly to the left and looking full face to the viewer, wearing a dark suit with a wing collar and a brown frock coat

Oil on board, 94 x 71.2 cm (37 x 28 in.)

Sitters’ Book I, f. 3: Max Egon Fürst zu Fürstenberg, März 99

Sitters’ Book I, f. 6: In Abwesenheit des Meisters 14/4 99 besuchten folgende hohe Gäste die Stätte stiller Arbeit das Heiligtum der Kunst und besahen die Werke welche “sehr gut in der Farbe sind.”^[1] Max Egon

Sitters’ Book I, f. 28: Max Egon Fst zu Fürstenberg / 24/7 99

Studio Inventory, p. 24 (133): Three-quarter length portrait of a man, brown hair and moustache, wearing stock and brown coat

This is a preparatory work for the formal three-quarter length portrait of Fürst Max Egon II Fürst zu Fürstenberg [3360], which was begun in Vienna in the spring of 1899 and finished at Schloss Donaueschingen, Germany, in July of the same year. It was a pendant to a portrait of his wife Irma [5297].

The face is finished to a degree that is unusual for de László’s preparatory works and suggests it was his intention to keep it as a souvenir of his time spent painting the Fürstenberg family. It remained in his studio until his death in 1937.

For biographical notes on the sitter see [3360].

PROVENANCE:
In the possession of the artist on his death

ATG 2018