110579

Countess Dénes Wenckheim and her children, Denise and Lajos 1907

Full-length, mother and daughter seated on a settee full face to the viewer, the Countess wearing a black gown with large puffed sleeves, her dark hair pinned up, her daughter Denise wearing a frilled white dress, black socks and shoes, her dark hair over her shoulders and tied with a red bow, holding a doll on her lap. Lajos standing on the right full-length in three-quarter profile, looking slightly right, wearing a midnight-blue outfit with white lace collar and cuffs

Oil on canvas, 220 x 166 cm (86 ½ x 65 ⅓ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. / Bécs [Vienna] 1907

Coupures Album, p. 114

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 73: Wenckheim Dénes. 4/23. 1905

Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum, Békéscsaba, Hungary

By 1899 de László was spending increasing amounts of time in Vienna fulfilling commissions and his reputation was well established when he moved there with his family in 1903. During nearly four years in the city he painted the Imperial Family and many of the most important members of the aristocracy. De László was a natural choice for the Wenckheim family who had both Hungarian and Austrian connections.

Count Wenckheim signed the artist’s Sitters’ Book in 1905 but de László’s progress on the portrait was slowed by his perpetual travel for other commissions. Between 1905 and 1907, when it was finally completed,^[1] the artist is known to have visited England, Italy, Germany, Holland, France and many other parts of Europe. The countess remarked in a letter to the artist that her children’s hair had grown in the delay between sittings.^[2] Large group portraits are rare in de László’s early career but he was completing them with increasing confidence by this time. Other such portraits painted in the period include: the Archduchess of Austria and her sister Henriette [11301], the van den Honert children [10133], Countess Schönborn and her daughter [7130], the Beit children [111488], and the Kupelwieser family [10429] in 1907.

The artist’s fee for the present picture was 10,000 Forints, almost double that earned for the portrait of Cardinal Rampolla in 1900.^[3]  It was one of the last he painted before his move to London in June 1907 and it was exhibited at the Nemzeti Szalon that year.

De László’s early biographer Otto von Schleinitz wrote of the painting: “László, who was never at a loss as to how to tackle and execute the commission entrusted to him, has diffused over the whole composition a sympathetic refinement and nobility reminiscent of Van Dyck. All the virtues of his great Dutch predecessor in terms of design and style come into play, combined with warm colouring. The Hungarian artist has understood no less than Van Dyck how to reproduce the finer nuances of the way of life of the whole aristocratic world, which in our time has become more and more international in its character.”^[4] 

De László painted Denise again in Paris in 1924, as an adult with her son Dénes [111309]. Both paintings were exhibited with fifty-one other pictures at the Műcsarnok in 1925, the last large exhibition of the artist’s work in Hungary in his lifetime. The present picture was thought to have been lost during the Second World War but was recently rediscovered at the Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum in Békéscsaba, close to the family castle, where it had been sent for safety.

Friderika Maria Wenckheim was born in Budapest 25 May 1873 to Count Frigyes Wenckheim  (1842-1912) and his wife Countess Krisztina Wenckheim (1849-1924), the heiress of the senior branch of the Wenckheim family. They were one of Hungary’s richest families and built a Neo-Renaissance palace in Budapest in what was known as the ‘Magnates Quarter.’ Their grand summer residence in Ókígyós in the south east of the country was designed by Miklós Ybl, one of Hungary’s most important architects. Countess Wenckheim served as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court and was appointed a Dame of the Star-Cross Order. She married her father’s first cousin Count Dénes Wenckheim (1861-1933), son of Anton Wenckheim and Maria Maximiliana Zichy de Zich et Vasonkeö, heir of the Doboz estate. Count Dénes Wenckheim was Privy Councillor and  member of the House of Magnates. There were four children of the marriage: Rudolf (born 1897), Denise (born 1898), Lajos (born 1900), Cecilie (born in 1907) and Frederike (born in 1911).

Lajos was born 14 May 1900 in Ókígyós. In 1912 he married Countess Mária Teleki de Szék, daughter of Count József Teleki de Szék (1884-1946) and Mária Luczenbacher de Szob (1884-1957). There were two children of the marriage: Rudolf Engelbert (born 1934) and Jeanne Marie (born 1936).

For biographical notes on Denise Wenckheim, see [111309].

In 1944 the family fled Hungary. Friderika and Denise and a few other members of the family moved to Algiers, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Lajos and his family moved to Austria; he died 8 July 1949 in Bregenz. Friderika died in Algiers 16 October 1957.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family;

Deposited at the Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum, Békéscsaba, Hungary

EXHIBITED:

•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, László Fülöp műveinek gyűjteményes kiállítása [Exhibition of Works by László Fülöp], April 1907, no. 71^[5]

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Tavaszi kiállítás és László Fülöp, Munkácsy Mihály, Pentelei Molnár János, valamit Petz Samu és Hűvös László összegyűjtött műveinek kiállítása [Spring Exhibition and Retrospectives of Philip de László, Mihály Munkácsy, János Pentelei Molnár, Samu Petz and László Hűvös], 4 May - 30 June 1925, no. 26

•Magyar Nemzeti Galéria [Hungarian National Gallery], Budapest, “A nagyvilág művésze vagyok” László Fülöp [Philip de László “I am an artist of the world…”], 2019-2020

LITERATURE:

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler-Monographien, Vol. 106: Ph. A. V. László, p. 82, ill. p. 56

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 76, pp. 102, 282

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019-2020, p. 65, ill. pp. 25, 26, 64

•László, Lucy de, 1905 diary, private collection, 12 and 14 April entry, p. 55

•NSzL149-0005, letter from de László to Lajos Ernst, 9 November 1906

•DLA070-0066, letter from Countess Dénes Wenckheim to de László, 2 March 1906

•DLA070-0062, letter from Countess Dénes Wenckheim to de László, 7 April 1907

•DLA162-0270, Pesti Hírlap, 16 May 1925, p. 5

•László, Philip de, 1934 diary, private collection, 12 July entry, pp. 97-98

•László, Philip de, 1935 diary, private collection, 12 March entry, p. 60

Pd’O & BS 2020