49

A Lady, thought to be Madame Singer, née Erzsébet Schmidl 1898

Head and shoulders, full face to the viewer, wearing a brown fur cape with a high collar and a dark hat

Oil on canvas, 52.5 x 44.5 cm (20 ¾ x 17 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László 1898 I

Inscribed on the stretcher: Smidl (sic) [in another hand]

Private Collection

In February 1898 de László exhibited twenty-two pictures at Galerie Schulte, the most prestigious art gallery in Berlin. The critics compared de László’s technique to that of Gainsborough and Reynolds, and the exhibition was visited by the German Emperor Wilhelm II [4952] and his wife [4962].^[1] De László’s success was evidence of the artist’s growing reputation in Germany. The present portrait was shown alongside those of Wilhelm Preetorius, [111115] or [111176], and several portraits of Count Apponyi and his wife (as yet unidentified).

This portrait played an important role in the artist’s career. Following the Berlin exhibition it was sent to the Paris Salon de la société des artistes français, where it was exhibited with the portrait of Princess Maximilian von Ratibor [4519]. There it caught the eye of Charles Henry Minot, the Surveyor of the Port of Boston, who visited de László in Budapest in the early summer of 1898 and commissioned the artist to paint his daughter-in-law and her son [6333]. The twenty-nine year old de László had too many commissions to be able to travel to Boston and so painted the portrait at Berwick Lodge in Ryde, Isle of Wight in August, where his patron had rented the house for the summer. This was the artist’s first commission in England.^[2] 

Erszébet Schmidl is thought to be a relation of Sándor Schmidl (1840-1899), a wealthy colonial goods merchant. His firm, Schmidl and Son had a shop in the inner city of Budapest at 11 Hercegprímás utca and also at 17 Károly körút in the Orczy House.^[3] The shopfront at Hercegprímás utca was designed by Béla Lajta (1873-1920), a famous Hungarian architect. Lajta also designed the Schmidl family’s elaborate crypt, in the Kozma utca cemetery in Budapest, which became one of the best known works of the Hungarian Secession. The sitter married Mr Singer, first name unknown, at an unknown date. It seems probable that it was after the Galerie Schulte exhibition in February 1898, as the portrait was listed in the Paris Salon catalogue later that year, as Madame Singer. The compilers of the catalogue raisonné have thus far been unable to discover more biographical information about the sitter.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family of the sitter;

Sold at Nagyházi Galéria, Budapest, 30 May 2017, lot 169

EXHIBITED:        

•Galerie Schulte, Berlin, February 1898^[4]

•Salon de la société des artistes français, Paris, 1898, no. 1184

LITERATURE:        

•Egy magyar művész sikerei Berlinben (The Success of a Hungarian Artist in Berlin), Budapesti Napló, Budapest, 8 March 1898

•NSzL150-0055, letter from de László to Elek Lippich, 21 March 1898

•DLA033-0022, two letters from Erszébet Singer, née Schmidl, to de László, letter 1: undated; letter 2: 29 December [no year]

BS 2018