11619

Paul Leonardo de Laszlo as Bacchus 1911

Head-and-shoulders in three-quarter profile to the left, full-face looking to the viewer, wearing a wreath of berried leaves on his head, holding a bunch of green grapes to his chest with both hands, a light chiffon drape just indicated around his bare back

Oil on canvas, 48.26 cm  (19 in.), (circular)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. László / 1911   

Laib L6476 (882) / C19 (22A):  Artist's child

NPG Album 1903-14, p. 50

NPG Album 1907-13, p. 39 Paul 1911 [in the artist’s hand]  

Private Collection

De László was honoured to present his self-portrait [9724] to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence earlier in 1911, where it was hung in the famed Artist’s Corridor. It seems likely that he was aware of Caravaggio’s painting of a Young Bacchus in the collection there and it may have provided the inspiration for this portrait of his son Paul. The subject was also popular in 18th century British Fancy Pictures and the artist would have seen Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of Mrs Hartley as a Nymph with a Young Bacchus, given to the Tate Gallery in 1903 by William Lockett Agnew [2560], who sat for de László shortly after the present portrait was painted.

Lucy de László records this picture in her diary as being painted just before Christmas: “My 41st birthday! P. really remembered it this year & gave me a lovely brass hammered jewel box, after a Bysantyne [sic] pattern – He chose all the stones himself – He is painting Paul with grapes last few days but today began a new one without grapes [13214] – Pauli very white & poor in health.”^[1]

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [13214].

PROVENANCE:  
In the possession of the artist on his death

LITERATURE:

•Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte, vol. XXVII, no. 1, September 1912, ill.          

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien Ph A.v. László, Bielefed and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, ill. opp. p. 56, pl. 65

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 200, ill.

•László, Lucy de, 1911 diary, private collection, p. 178

SdeL 2008 

KF 2017