10219

Study portrait
Ilona Krämer 1913
Head and shoulders, slightly to the right, her head turned slightly and looking to the left, wearing Hungarian national dress with a pearl-trimmed párta (head dress) and laced bodice, a string of amber beads round her neck
Oil on board, 76 x 52 cm (30 x 20 ½ in.)
Inscribed lower left: Ilonkának [For Ilonka] / LONDON, 1913. XII. / P. A. de László

Laib L6834(838)/C20 (26A) The artist’s niece
NPG 1903-14 Album, p. 41

NPG 1912-16 Album, p. 23 where labelled by the artist: my dear nice [sic] Ilonka London. 1913. XII

Private Collection

This portrait of  de László’s niece Ilona was painted in London while she was visiting the artist and his family, accompanied by the artist’s mother Johanna Laub [8598]. They stayed between October 1913 and February 1914 and the artist’s appointment diary notes that she sat for this portrait 30 December and 6 January.^[1] De László was very fond of Ilona and we know from his archive that he painted her on several occasions. The present portrait is the only one that has been traced, however. A portrait drawing of her made in Munich in 1912 is in the same private collection [8600] as the present picture.

Ilona Krämer, known to her family as Ilonka, was born in Budapest in 1893, the daughter of de László’s sister Róza Laub (1868-1919) and her husband Gyula Krämer (died 1945), a travelling salesman. After the death of Róza in 1919 her husband married her widowed elder sister Szeréna Laub (1865-1935).

In late 1914 Ilonka married Gábor Lakos (formerly Lemberger) in Budapest.^[2] There were two children of the marriage: István (born 1917) and János (born 1921). Ilonka’s marriage was happy and her husband had a successful career being promoted to a factory director and awarded the honorific title of Komerzialrat (Commercial Counsellor). De László met the couple in May 1914 when he stopped in Budapest on his return to London from Greece, where he was painting King Constantine [11591] and other members of the Royal Family.^[3] 

The artist supported his Hungarian family financially and after the outbreak of the First World War it became illegal to send money to Britain’s enemies. He continued to send letters through the Dutch diplomatic mail and money through his contacts in Austria and Hungary, including £500 for Ilonka’s dowry. He was arrested on suspicion of trading with an enemy nation in September 1917 and interned, first at Brixton prison and then Holloway Internment Camp in Islington. He remained imprisoned or under house arrest until June 1919, when he was cleared and allowed to retain his status as a British National. This had been granted just after the outbreak of the war in September 1914.

During the 1920’s and 1930’s de László remained in regular and affectionate correspondence with Ilonka and frequently sent her presents of jewellery or clothes. His letters to her reveal his constant anxiety over his brother Marczi’s [6521] marital problems, business affairs and his depressive illness.  Ilonka last saw her uncle in 1935, when he visited Budapest to paint Admiral Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary [110886].^[4] 

Ilonka’s husband was killed in the Holocaust in 1944. She survived him, dying in 1964.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

EXHIBITED:

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society Spring Exhibition and Retrospectives of Philip de László, Mihály Munkácsy, János Pentelei Molnár, Samu Petz and László Hűvös, 4 May - 30 June 1925 [Műcsarnok, Országos Magyar Képzőművészeti Társulat, Budapest, Tavaszi kiállítás és László Fülöp, Munkácsy Mihály, Pentelei Molnár János, valamit Petz Samu és Hűvös László összegyűjtött műveinek kiállítása, 1925. május 4 - június 30.], no. 48

LITERATURE:
•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, p. 296
•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László, His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, p. 142

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 229, ill.

•Lászlό, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection, 24 October entry

•Lászlό, Philip de, 1913 appointment diary, 30 December entry

•Lászlό, Philip de, 1914 appointment diary, 6 January entry
•László, Lucy de, 1914 diary, private collection, 15 February entry

•DLA162-0174, Pesti Hírlap, 12 April 1914, p. 6
•DLA127-0005, letter from Ilonka Krämer to Mrs Philip de László, 9 May 1914
•DLA129-0012, letter from de László to Mme. Gábor Lakos, 2 April 1935




Pd’O 2018