10275

Landscape study

Court of Ramses II at Luxor Temple 1929

With statues and pillars, some damaged or overturned, blue sky beyond

Oil on canvas, 79.4 x 58.4 cm (31 ¼ x 23 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / LUXOR 1929   

Inscribed verso: de Laszlo Luxor Tempel (sic.) /1929 / March / P.A. de László

Laib L21171 (226) / C32 (21)

Studio Inventory, p. 102 (604): Temple at Luxor. On loan from the Trustees.

In January 1929 de László went to Cairo to paint King Fuad I of Egypt and his son, Prince Farouk. When these commissions were completed, the artist was joined by his wife and their thirteen-year-old son Paul and together they journeyed up the Nile by boat visiting Karnak, Luxor and Aswan. Revelling in the intense light playing upon such varied scenery, he painted a number of oil studies of the landscape and the local people for his own pleasure. Lucy noted how much he was enjoying it in her diary: “Aft= P. finished his picture of Luxor temple [10275] – I watched him making the sun effects more silvery – P. happy painting in the open & quiet -  He has painted 4 pictures here.” These are [9438] [11479] & [11748].

According to the inscription verso, this view of part of the Temple at Luxor was painted in March 1929. One of the artist’s biographers, Derek Clifford, wrote:“In the wide range of de László’s landscape subjects…it was the natural drama of brilliant sunlight to which he reacted most vigorously. Without the sun his studies often, although not always, failed to extract any quality from the scene other than a prosaic statement of fact, but when sunlight drenched stone his work became instantly alive.”^[1]

PROVENANCE:          

In the possession of the artist on his death

EXHIBITED:          

•Bristol, Royal West of England Academy, 84th Annual Exhibition, November 1929 - February 1930, no. 26

•The Royal Society of British Artists, London, One Hundred and Sevemty-third Exhibition, Spring 1930, no. 168

•Victoria Art Galleries, Dundee, Exhibition of recent Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., September 1932, no. 65

•Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., London, Exhibition of Paintings by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., In Aid of the London Hospital and The Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, November-December, 1937, no. 41.

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur, 6-22 January 2004, no. 113

•Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, 2024, no. 43

LITERATURE:          

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 371

•Clifford, Derek, The Paintings of P.A. de Laszlo, London, 1969, ill. p. 57, pl. XIII.

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London 2004, p. 177, ill.

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 212, ill. 114

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

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance,

Blackmore, 2024, p. 141, ill. p. 140

•László, Lucy de, 1929 diary, private collection, 1 May entry, p. 122

CC 2011