110805

Count Ernő Zichy de Zich et Vásonkeö 1905

Standing three- quarter length, head turned slightly to the right, his body slightly to the left, dressed in shooting jacket, with white cravat, holding a cap in his right hand and his belt with his left hand.

Oil on canvas, 164.5 x 108.6 cm (64 ¾ x 42 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower left: László FE / Vienna 1905 I

Inscribed top right:Comes Ernestus Zichy de Vásonykeő, Caesarius et Regius Cubicularius^[1] [Count Ernő Zichy, Imperial and Royal Chamberlain]

Sitters’ Book  I, f.10:  Grf Zichy Ernő / Grf Zichy Ernőné / Bécs 1899.

Private Collection

Count Ernő Zichy de Zich et Vásonkeö descended from the Seregélyes sub-branch of the large Zichy family^[2] in Hungary. He was born on 20 November 1846 at Sztára, the estate of his mother's family, the third of four sons of Count Lipót Zichy and his wife Mária, née Countess Sztáray de Nagymihály et Sztára. Ernő’s younger brother Count Géza Zichy (1849-1924) was an author and composer, a pupil and friend of Ferenc Liszt. Despite the loss of his right arm at the age of fourteen, Géza became a concert pianist, the president of the National Academy of Music and the Intendant of the Royal Opera House in Budapest. Géza's daughter Margit married Count János Zichy (1868-1944), who was an early patron of de László.^[3]

On 15 September 1867 Count Ernő Zichy married in Pozsony (now Bratislava) Baroness Ilona Lo-Presti de la Fontana d'Angioli (1847-1901). A daughter, Irma, was born the following year but they subsequently divorced. On 29 June 1891 in Budapest he married Etelka Steinfeld (1860-1943). They had one son, named after his father. For Etelka too, this was a second marriage, as she had previously been married to Baron László Dirsztay, the Turkish Consul in Budapest. She signed the Sitters' Book in Vienna in 1899 with Count Ernő, but was not painted by de László.

Count Ernő Zichy was a major landowner and an Imperial and Royal Chamberlain. His estate was at Buzinka, near Kassa (now Košice, in Slovakia), where he owned a famous collection of porcelain. It is likely that he was introduced to the artist by Zsigmond Bubics, Bishop of Kassa, who was an important patron of de László.^[4]  In 1905 he purchased the estate of Prince János Liechtenstein in Ács, near Komárom in western Hungary.  He was an amateur painter^[5] and despite their age difference de László came to be on friendly terms with him, as he did with many of his sitters. Count Zichy planned to travel with him to Paris in the autumn of 1906 or the spring of 1907,^[6] but these plans did not materialise. He died in Vienna on 9 April 1919.

The present portrait had a long period of gestation. Its origins date back to 1896, the year of Hungary's millennial celebrations and an exceptionally busy year for the artist. However, Count Zichy fell ill and asked for the sittings to be postponed. He was supported in this by his wife, who added: "His present appearance is not one which I would like to be recorded."^[7] After repeated delays, the painting of the portrait was eventually started during the summer of 1904 when the artist was in Vienna, and was probably completed during the winter of that year.^[8] When Count Zichy received the portrait, he wrote: "everybody is admiring it with great wonderment and the feeling it gives me is that as it is now here, there is no further need for me - I can go away."^[9] However, his wife took a less favourable view. She saw the portrait when it was exhibited in the Künstlerhaus in Vienna in 1905, and asked the artist to keep it in his studio until she could personally explain to him the alterations that she would like: "I felt that there was something in the portrait which is not Ernő and which I find alien and unpleasant".^[10] It is not known whether the artist made any alterations, but in view of his indignant response to an earlier similar request from another sitter,^[11] it is unlikely that he did so.

There exists also an undated preparatory sketch for the present portrait [112003].

PROVENANCE:

Sold at auction, at Tring Auction House on 28 May 2010, lot 433

EXHIBITED:

•Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Künstlerhaus Thirty-Second Annual Exhibition, May-June 1905, no. 172

•Műcsarnok, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Tavaszi kiállítás [Spring Exhibition], 1906, no.14, ill.

LITERATURE:  

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, no. 106, PH. A. von László, Bielefeld and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 83.

•Országos Magyar Képzőművészeti Társulat (Hungarian Fine Art Society), 1905 Tavaszi Kiállítás [1905 Spring Exhibition], Budapest: Singer és Wolfner, 1906, p.14, ill.

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 200

•DLA039-0075, letter from Count and Countess Ernő Zichy to de László, 1 August 1896

•DLA150-0038, letter from de László to Elek Lippich, 28 October 1896

•DLA066-0043, letter from Zsigmond Bubics to de László, 4 July, probably 1897

•DLA039-0077, letter from Count Ernő Zichy to de László, 2 October 1904

•DLA039-0078, letter from Countess Ernő Zichy to de László, 13 May 1905                                                                                                                                                                  

•DLA039-0069, letter from Count Ernő Zichy to de László, 4 June 1906

•DLA039-0083, letter from Count Ernő Zichy to de László, undated

Pd’O 2008