110812

UNTRACED

Countess Sándor Andrássy, née Countess Marie Esterházy 1901

Three-quarter length facing the viewer, seated on a sofa, wearing a pale silk dress with lace trim, holding a purse in her left hand which rests in her lap, her right arm resting on the sofa, a white papillon dog beside her

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 49: Andrássy Mariette II. 11. 901

In 1898 de László made two preparatory oil sketches of the sitter on the recto and verso of the same board [111541] & [112211], but he was unable to complete the commission that year. In February 1898 he arrived in Weimar to paint the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar [10512]. In March he wrote from there to his mentor and friend Elek Lippich [111102], Secretary of the Fine Arts Department of the Hungarian Ministry of Education: “I will write to Countess Andrássy to wait until May; in any case her husband would prefer me to paint her on their estate.”^[1] But from then on he became increasingly busy as commissions which he could not refuse were pouring in from many countries. It was not until 1901 that he was able to paint the present portrait, which bears no relationship to his two preparatory studies. Further preparatory studies on the recto and verso of a board are remembered by a descendant of the sitter but these remain untraced [112212] & [112213]. On 31 March 1901 de Lảszlỏ wrote to his friend, Bishop Fraknói [111904]: “I had so many obligations and was busy from morning to late at night…I have just today finished three of my portraits – of Szapáry [111159], Andrássy and Falk [111093], for the spring exhibition.”^[2] A photograph published in the magazine Új Idők in early 1901 shows the artist sitting in his studio surrounded by some of his recent paintings, in which the present portrait is prominently displayed.^[3] 

De László was an accomplished painter of animals, able to capture their personalities with as much facility as his human sitters. Other examples are Lady Londonderry’s lurcher [6142], Lady Wantage’s pekinese [110784] and Chinky [11036] the de László family’s pekinese who appears in a number of portraits with Lucy de László, the artist’s wife.

Countess Mária ‘Mariette’ Esterházy de Galántha^[4] was born in Réde in western Hungary on 14 January 1870, the daughter of Count Imre Esterházy (1840-1918) and his wife, Countess Alexandrina Rossi (1844-1919). Countess Rossi’s mother was the famous opera singer Henriette Sontag.^[5] Mariette, as she was usually known, was a Dame of the Star Cross Order and a lady in waiting. The writer and diarist Zsigmond Justh^[6] describes meeting her at a race meeting in May 1889, shortly after her marriage: “On the turf I made the acquaintance of Mariette Esterházy, the young and beautiful wife of my boyhood friend, Sándor Andrássy, whom strangely enough I had not previously met. She is not merely beautiful, but Beauty Incarnate. A pale complexion, beautiful dark blue eyes, golden locks, a fine, straight nose, small but full lips, and a snow-white neck. She outshines all the women and girls who are present.”^[7] On 5 January 1889 Mariette married Count Sándor Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka (1863-1946), a nephew of Count Gyula Andrássy who had been Prime Minister of Hungary 1867-1871 and then Foreign Minister of the Dual Monarchy until 1879. Count Sándor Andrássy was a Privy Counsellor and Court Chamberlain, a Member of Parliament and later a Member of the Upper House. He was a well-known sportsman, who introduced skiing to Hungary in 1878. He founded the Royal Hungarian Automobile Club in 1906, remaining its President until 1944. He was a major landowner, with estates of over 18,000 acres in north-eastern Hungary (Mariette owned an additional 1,500 acres in her own name).^[8]

When the present portrait was painted, the couple’s principal residence was in Velejte in the county of Zemplén, in north-east Hungary (now Vel’aty in Slovakia). Here Count Sándor Andrássy inherited from his grandmother a chateau which had belonged to the Csáky family and which he renovated in the 1880’s. The sitter’s three children were all born there. They also owned a large baroque chateau nearby at Homonna (now Humenne, in Slovakia). Probably because both these had become part of Slovakia after 1920, they later lived in Tiszadob, north-east Hungary, in a smaller chateau which is now the Town Hall.^[9] They also had a residence in Budapest, which was looted and burned during the winter of 1944. In January 1945 the Russian secret police moved into the building. The couple had three children: Imre (born 1891), Mihály (born 1893) and Margit (born 1902).

The sitter died in Budapest on 10 March 1962, aged 92.

EXHIBITED:

•Hungarian Fine Art Society, Tavaszi kiállítás [Spring Exhibition], Budapest,1901, no. 132, ill.

•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, 1907, no. 90

LITERATURE:

•Új Idők, 1901, I, p. 195

•Téli Tárlat [Winter Exhibition], 1901, p. 16

•Tahi, Anthony. “A Hungarian painter: Filip E. László,” The Studio, Vol. XXIV (1901), p. 20

•Velhagen & Klasing, Monatshefte, May 1902, ill.

•Justh Zsigmond naplója és levelei , Hazai napló 1889  [The Diary and Letters of Zsigmond Justh, Hungarian Diary, 1889], entry for 5 May. Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, Budapest,1977, p.  249

•Gudenus, János, Szentirmay, László, Összetört címerek [Broken Coats of Arms], Mozaik, Budapest, 1989, p. 249

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 54

•NSzL150-0052, letter from de László to Elek Lippich, 9 March 1898

•DLA162-0439, Pesti Hírlap, 26 May 1900, p. 6

•DLA091-0017, Egyetértés, 26 May 1900 [page unknown]

•DLA044-0057, letter from de László to Vilmos Fraknói, 31 March 1901

•DLA162-0467, Pesti Hírlap, 28 April 1901, p. 6

Pd’O 2017