5691

UNTRACED

Study portrait

Admiral Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary 1927

Half length to the right, looking full face to the viewer, wearing naval uniform, arms folded across his chest
Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1927. oct.

Sitters’ Book  II, f. 56: Horthy / Gödöllő 27 / IX 927

In the autumn of 1927 the Hungarian government commissioned de László to paint a portrait of the Regent for the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest [5684]. The artist and his wife visited Hungary in September 1927 and the present study-portrait was painted during that visit.  

Compared to the commissioned picture, the Regent is shown here in a more informal manner, wearing his naval uniform without any decorations, and without his sword. The composition is reminiscent of Sir Thomas Lawrence's 1820-21 portrait of the Duke of Wellington,^[1] which must have been familiar to de László. Horthy too is depicted as a resolute man with an air of authority and frankness. The present work appears to have been the last of the series of six portraits painted by the artist during his visit, as it is seen in an unfinished state in a contemporary newspaper illustration^[2] which shows de László sitting in the dining room of the Royal Castle surrounded by the works he completed there.^[3] It is likely that this picture was intended as a personal gift to the Regent, who had enjoyed sitting for de László, and whom the artist much admired.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [5684].

EXHIBITED:

•Hungarian Fine Art Society, Műcsarnok, Budapest, Winter Exhibition (Téli Kiállítás), December 1927- February 1928, no. 20

LITERATURE:

•Pesti Napló (Pest Diary), Vasárnap (Sunday), 23 October 1927, pp. 78-9, ill.

•A Pesti Hírlap Vasárnapja (Pest Herald's Sunday), Vol. 56, issue 54, 11 November 1934, front cover, ill.          
•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, p. 369

•Rutter, Owen, Regent of Hungary: The Authorised Life of Admiral Nicholas Horthy (Based on Baroness Lily Doblhoff's  Horthy Miklós), Rich & Cowan Ltd., London, undated [1939], ill. frontispiece
•Bangha, Ernő, A Magyar Királyi Testőrség, 1920-1944 (The Hungarian Royal Guard, 1920-1944), Budapest, 1990, pp. 37-8                                                                                                                                                                                  •De Laszlo, Sandra ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2010, p. 173

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László, His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, pp. 208-9
•Sallay, Gergely Pál, Megkésett Elismerés. László Fülöp és a Magyar Corvin Díszjelvény (A Belated Recogntion: Philip de László and the Hungarian Corvin Badge of Honour), In: Katonaújság, Vol II., No. 6, December 2011, pp. 12-19, ill. p. 16
•Hőseink. Horthy Miklós Sorhajókapitány Haditette  (Our Heroes: The Combat Action of Commodore Miklós Horthy), Katonaújság, Vol. II., No. 6, December 2011, pp. 35-9, ill. p. 34

•DLA030-0019, letter from László Kézdi Kovács to de László, 23 September 1927                                                              

•DLA162-0375, Rákosi, Jenő, “Bucsuebéd” [Farewell Lunch], Pesti Hírlap, 22 October 1927, pp. 1-2

•DLA162-0413, Pesti Hírlap, 24 November 1927, p. 13
•DLA111-0139, English translation of press cutting from Az Est (The Evening), 28 November 1927                     
•DLA111-0133, English translation of press cutting from Pesti Hírlap (Pest Herald), 18 December 1927
•DLA111-0135, English translation of press cutting from Pester Lloyd, 18 December 1927

Pd’O 2010