10627

Portrait drawing

Hubert Ridder de Stuers 1920

Head-and-shoulders to the right, looking almost full-face to the viewer, wearing a jacket and a shirt

Charcoal on paper, 46 x 29 cm (18 ⅛ x 11 ⅜ in.)

Inscribed lower right: Souvenir / to de Stuers- / the Hague 1920- Sept. / P. A. de László

Private Collection

Hubert Victor Arthur Auguste Ridder de Stuers was born in Paris on 13 November 1879, the son of Alphonse de Stuers (1841-1919), the Dutch Ambassador in Paris, and his American wife Margaret Laura Carey (1853-1911), whose mother was a sister of John Jacob Astor III. He was married three times: to Cornelia Maria de la Poer Livingston (1882-1966) on 10 October 1906 in Freiburg in southern Germany, with whom he had a son and a daughter; secondly to the Viennese Mathilde Gertrud Theresia von Sailvinyi (1893-1976) on 24 January 1921, and thirdly on 29 December 1931 in Mathod (Vaud), Swizerland, to Clarisa Maria Kemball-Cook (1910-1953), “a very lovely young lady from the Argentine!” as Hubert described her to de László^[1], with whom he had a daughter. He died 22 November 1946 in Gland (Vaud).

Hubert’s father was a great admirer of de László’s work and is known to have accompanied Adèle van Loon^[2] [7409] to the exhibition at the Pulchri Studio in The Hague in 1903 where a number of de László’s recent works were exhibited.^[3] 

In March 1909 de László had painted Hubert’s second cousin Hugo Loudon [6227] and his mother Louise Loudon-de Stuers [6238]. The present sketch was made in September 1920, shortly before Hubert accompanied de László to his cousin Alice de Stuers’s house where he made also a sketch of her [110693].

EXHIBITED:          

•Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam De László in Holland, Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), 3 March-5 June 2006, no 25    

LITERATURE:         

•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, 10, 56, 58, 59, ill. no. 25

•DLA023-0168, letter from Hubert de Stuers to de László, 12 October 1934

•DLA087-0055, letter from Adèle van Loon to de László, 7 May 1903

•DLA011-0003, letter from Alphonse de Stuers to de László, 16 April 1903

CWS 2006