8771

Charles de Gramont  1914

Head-and-shoulders to the left, full-face, wearing a blue blouse with a full white collar

Oil on board, 60.4 x 44.5 cm (23 ¾ x 17 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. de László / Paris 1914.I.   

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 22: Janvier 1914 Charles de Gramont

Maison de Gramont Collection, Musée National et Domaine du Château de Pau

The dignified look of de László’s young sitter, the movement in his hair and the fine Louis XV frame combine to make this a princely portrait. The palette against the warm ochre background allows the picture to be both gentle and yet flamboyant. In his unpublished memoirs, the father of the sitter, Armand, 12th duc de Gramont, noted about de László: “When he came to Paris, he painted in the studio which I had arranged in my house in the avenue Henri Martin and on each of these occasions he made of my wife, myself or my children one of those quick sketches which constitute, I believe, the best of his work. It is thus that I found myself head of a veritable gallery of Laszlo pictures.”^[1] The present work counts amongst this ‘gallery’ and like most of the paintings belonging to Armand de Gramont, was probably a gift from de László to his great friend.  

Charles de Gramont, born on 17 March 1911, was the youngest of the four sons and one daughter of Antoine XII-Armand, 12th duc de Gramont (1879-1962) and his wife Elaine Greffulhe (1882-1958). He had a distinguished military career serving with the U.S. Army in the Second World War and was a notably courageous officer. In 1966 he married Shermin Baras, and died without issue in Paris on 7 September 1976.

PROVENANCE:         

By descent in the family

EXHIBITED:          

•Musée National du Château de Pau, La Belle époque des Gramont au Temps des équipages, 7 October 1994-31 January 1995, handlist no. 37

•Musée National et domaine du Château de Pau, Maison Baylaucq, L’air de famille: portraits d’enfants de la collection Gramont, 17 February-21 May 2017, no. 17

•Musée Basque et de l’histoire de Bayonne, L’air de famille: portraits d’enfants de la collection Gramont, 16 December 2017-8 April 2018, no. 17

LITERATURE:         

•Chaleyssin, Patrick, La Peinture mondaine de 1870 à 1960, Editions Celia, 1993, ill. p. 32, pl. 58

•Gramont, Armand, duc (de), Unpublished Memoirs, in the possession of a descendant of the author, p. 131

•Ribeton, Olivier, Elisa Fontanelli, L’air de famille portraits d’enfants de la collection Gramont, Les Petits cahier du château de Pau no. 7, France, 2017, pp. 38-39, ill. pp. 18, 39

CC 2008