7925

King Alfonso XIII of Spain 1910

Standing three-quarter length slightly to the right, his head turned and looking to the left, his right hand on his hip, wearing a dark cloak over the uniform of the King's Lancers No.1 Cavalry Regiment, the insignia of the Golden Fleece round his neck, and holding the hilt of his sword with his left hand

Oil on canvas, 146.1 x 105.4 cm (57 ½ x 41 ½ in.)

Inscribed top left: P A László . 1910. / ... . LONDON.

Laib L5231 (782) / C25 (7)  

NPG 1903-1914 Album, p. 21

NPG 1907-1913 Album, p. 42:  H.M. the King of Spain / 1910 / Madrid

Sitters’ Book I, f. 87: Alfonso R.H. / 12. VI. 1910  [below note by the artist: Palais / Madrid & above his wife’s signature]

Private Collection  

The present portrait is one of four known portraits of Alfonso XIII of Spain by de László, whose patronage by the Spanish royal Family began in 1910 when he and his wife travelled to Spain intending to take a holiday. Princess Henry of Battenberg [3488] had given the artist a letter of introduction to the Queen Mother María Cristina [7922]. In a letter to her husband’s family in Budapest, see [7922], Lucy described her meeting with the Queen Mother: “She had greatly admired the picture of Prince Louis of Battenberg [3464]. The end of it all was she said she would arrange for the King to sit to Philip for his portrait – and so it was. Next day Philip was received in audience by the King and the young Queen [7933] and a sitting was arranged for the next day. The King is a very clever man, his mother says, and he indeed appears to be. Philip is painting him three-quarter length, standing in dark blue uniform, bare-headed, with the Order of the Golden Fleece.”^[1] 

Lucy recorded in her diary that de László experienced problems painting the King, as he did not sit well,^[2] but she did not specify why this was so. She also described how, on the first day, “when [Alfonso XIII] & P.[hilip] were picking out what uniform he sd wear, the King remarked when P. said of some uniform, it wd make him look to[o] brown.  But I am Spanish, I have a brown face, I want to be Spanish because “I am Spanish, I am a rough fellow.” He told P. today that he thinks in 40 years time, there will be no more Kings - They had great talks today about politics, both Ena & Alfonso with P. She said “Sie würden nicht glauben die Eifersucht die zwischen Königen herrscht” [“You wouldn’t believe the jealousy there is between Kings”] […] He told P. that in the last revolution, avant Fer[r]er,^[3] he did not receive one message of advice from any of the sovereigns. She again says that “mein Onkel schadet mich so mit seine Art zu leben mit Frauen” [“my uncle^[4] does me a lot of harm in his way of living with women”]. […] He said, if they want a Republic, I am quite ready to go - He is tired of ruling, & has said as soon as his son is old enough er wird zurücktreten [he will step down] & let the son rule.^[5]

These confidences show the extent to which de László had earned the royal family’s trust, and the fact that he never reported what had been said to him in private probably played an important role in his success as a court painter.

The artist was not able to complete the present portrait of the King in Madrid, but had his uniform sent to London, and finished the picture there in his studio on Campden Hill; hence the inscription on this canvas. King Alfonso subsequently bestowed him with the Order of Isabel la Católica.  

Alfonso was born a king in Madrid on 17 May 1886, almost six months after his father Alfonso XII died of tuberculosis aged only twenty-eight. His mother, María Cristina of Austria [7922], served as Regent during her son’s minority. With two elder sisters, the future of the Bourbon dynasty depended on the young Alfonso whose early illnesses – severe influenza and bronchitis - caused alarm in court circles. The future king grew up in the stiflingly protective atmosphere of the predominantly female royal family. María Cristina was anxious to build up Alfonso’s physical strength and he was encouraged to spend much time swimming, sailing and riding. The delicate child grew into a strong and energetic young adult. Under a strict educational regime he developed a particular fondness for history and languages and gained a lasting passion for military life.

At the age of sixteen in 1902, Alfonso was proclaimed effective King of Spain as Alfonso XIII. These were troubled times for his country. Political life was unstable and between 1902 and 1906 the young Alfonso had to deal with 14 ministerial crises and 8 different prime ministers. 

On 3 May 1906, Alfonso XIII married Princess Victoria Eugénie of Battenberg, granddaughter of Queen Victoria and niece of Edward VII, the beautiful “Ena,” with whom he had fallen in love on a visit to England the previous year, see [7933]. After the wedding ceremony at the Royal Church of San Jerónimo in Madrid, a bomb was thrown at their carriage by an anarchist, Mateo Morral. The bomb exploded, narrowly missing the king and his bride, but killing or injuring a number of spectators and members of the royal party. The next day Alfonso and Ena rode unescorted in a carriage through the streets of the city to reassure the people that they were unharmed. Spain had gained a more modern, international image with the young king, interested in travel, the arts and modern inventions, but the foreign guests returned home shocked by the tragic incident. This was one of several attempts to kill Alfonso which seriously damaged Spain’s prestige abroad. Edward VII himself [7705] refused to reciprocate the official visit Alfonso had made to England in 1905, a rebuff the Spanish King would never forget.

The Queen bore him four sons and two daughters between 1907 and 1914, as well as a still-born son in 1910, and another in 1918. The eldest, Alfonso [8004], and the youngest, Gonzalo [8014], were both afflicted with haemophilia, which ultimately caused their deaths after they were involved in motor-car accidents. The second son, Jaime [10852], was born with serious hearing difficulties and, at the age of four, became completely deaf. The fact that two sons of the marriage suffered from haemophilia only strengthened the bond between Alfonso and his mother María Cristina, who blamed the Queen for their condition, since it had run in her family. María Cristina’s acceptance of her son’s extra-marital affairs further increased Victoria Eugenia’s sense of isolation at Court.

Alfonso had been educated in the protective atmosphere of the royal household, detached from the realities of politics. A soldier and a man of action rather than of intellect, in the difficult years ahead he easily made enemies of intellectuals, like Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset and Manuel Azaña, but he was praised during the First World War for maintaining Spain’s neutrality. He also used his family connections to save the lives of hundreds of people and to secure the release of thousands of prisoners. In May 1921, Alfonso delivered a speech denouncing the parliamentary system in Spain, and in July a Spanish force of 10,000 men was annihilated by rebellious tribes in Spanish Morocco. The situation became so critical that in 1923 General Miguel Primo de Rivera [111272] took over the government, without resistance from the King, and set up a military dictatorship.

Alfonso’s confidence was further undermined when María Cristina, died unexpectedly in 1929, aged seventy. The dictatorship, although in difficulties, endured until 1930, by which time it had become so unpopular that even the army refused to support it. Alfonso’s association with Primo acted against him and he continued to leave himself open to attack by appointing General Berenguer to succeed the outgoing dictator. By failing to re-establish the powers of Parliament, this reputedly more liberal general exacerbated the situation even further. In the municipal elections of April 1931, the republicans won the vote in the most important Spanish cities. Alfonso left the country rather than risk civil war. In fact, the provisional government of the Republic only guaranteed the safety of the lives of the royal family “until sunset”, if the King did not leave immediately. Alfonso XIII went into exile on 13 April 1931, following the proclamation of Spain’s Second Republic.

It was not long before the royal couple decided to separate.  He persuaded both his eldest son, constantly debilitated by his haemophilia, and his second son Jaime, on account of his difficulties of hearing and speech, to renounce succession in favour of their younger brother, Juan [12015]. In the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) King Alfonso took the side of the Nationalists, who had risen up against the Republican government. From Italy, where he was living, Alfonso even persuaded Mussolini [6383] to send Italian planes on behalf of the Nationalist cause. On 15 January 1941 King Alfonso, who was suffering from a heart condition, finally renounced his rights to the Spanish throne in favour of his third son don Juan. Victoria Eugenia, who had been living apart from him for nearly ten years by now, moved to be with him at his residence in the Grand Hotel, Rome. He died there on 28 February 1941 and was buried at the Spanish Church of Montserrat. Victor Emmanuel I of Italy presided over the funeral. On 19 January 1980, according to his funeral wishes, Alfonso’s remains were transferred to El Escorial, the pantheon of Kings and Queens, in the presence of his grandson, King Juan Carlos I.

Main source: Noel, Gerard. Ena, Spain’s English Queen, Constable 1984

PROVENANCE:

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain,^[6] wife of the sitter;

Don Juan de  Borbón y Battenberg, Conde de Barcelona, son of the sitter

EXHIBITIONS:

•Thos. Agnew and Sons, London, Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., May-June 1911, no. 25

•Thos. Agnew and Sons, London, Exhibition of Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June-July 1913, no. 25

LITERATURE:

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 269-70

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 123-124, 133 ill. 71

•García-Frías Checa, Carmen, ed., El Retrato en Las Colecciones Reales de Patrimonio Nacional de Juan de Flandes a Antonio López, 2015, ill. p. 469

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 93

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 167, ill. pp. 166, 178, 185

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, private collection, p. 160, pp. 162-164

•DLA162-0103, Pesti Hírlap, 7 April 1910, p. 8

With our grateful thanks to Excmo. Sr. Don Javier González de Vega y San Román for his assistance in preparing the biography for this entry.

SMdeL