7468

Preparatory work

Duchesse de Gramont, née baronne Marguerite-Alexandrinede Rothschild  1902

Head-and-shoulders slightly to the right, head just turned and looking to the left, wearing a red gown trimmed with white and large black hat

Oil on board 53 x 65.5 cm (21 x 25 ⅞ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. 

Sitters' Book I, f. 59: Rothschild Gramont / Valliere 19 Septembre / 1902 

Private Collection

This preparatory work would almost certainly have been painted in 1902. The formal portrait for which this was made was originally part of a large group portrait which showed the sitter with her elder son, Antoine XII-Armand [11801], and her daughter Corisande [6625]. It was one of two group portraits of the de Gramont family that de László painted and which he subsequently divided up into six separate canvases, see [8752].

Although de László eventually slightly modified the sitter’s hair in the formal portrait, it is worth noticing that otherwise the treatment of his sitter in the present sketch and in the resulting portrait [6550] is almost identical. Similarly, the two other preparatory works for the portrait of the sitter, one a portrait in pencil [6544], again almost identical to the present one in terms of composition, and a small full-length oil sketch [6653] show that de László, from the beginning, had a very clear concept of the composition he would adopt. This is characteristic of de László’s method in his later years, but due to the complexity of this commission, it is interesting to note that he was already making such detailed preparatory works at this early stage in his career.

LITERATURE:        

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 210

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 80-81

CC 2012