4506

La duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, née Elisabeth de Gramont  1902

Seated full-length to the right, full-face, wearing a full pink gown trimmed with white organza and lace, a straw hat decorated with white feathers and a black ribbon hanging from the arm of her chair, on which her right elbow rests, her hand to her chin, all against a wooded landscape background

Oil on canvas, 210 x 120 cm (86 x 50 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower left: László F.E. / 1902. Vallière

Sitters’ Book I, f. 60: Clermont-Tonnerre Ctesse Chandon / 11 Novembre 1902

Maison de Gramont Collection, Musée National et Domaine du Château de Pau

The present painting was originally part of a large group portrait of three members of the de Gramont family that was cut down in 1926 and divided into separate canvases to make way for a large tapestry, see [8752]. The de Gramont family were de László’s greatest friends and patrons in Europe and in 1929 the artist was at the height of his success and supremely busy. It cannot be imagined that he would undertake this task of destroying two early works and taking the time to repaint the resulting fragments with such care for any other patron.

The group portrait in question originally included, from left to right, the sitter, Elisabeth de Gramont, who was duc Antoine XI-Agénor de Gramont’s daughter from his first marriage; Louis-René [8761], her step-brother from Agénor’s second marriage; and her father [8752]. A second large portrait included the sitter’s step-mother, Marguerite-Alexandrine [6650], her step-brother Armand de Gramont [11801] and her step-sister Corisande de Noailles [6625].

When the two big pictures were cut down and divided into six individual portraits, de László had to insert new panels of canvas in order to modify the composition and repaint some areas. For the present portrait, de László had to add a panel in the top right corner of the canvas – where Louis-René de Gramont was previously portrayed – on which he painted the atmospheric dark blue sky as a background.

During the sittings for the present portrait, de László also painted a head-and-shoulders study portrait in oil of the duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre [6550], which he gave her as a token of his friendship. Years later, de László made another study portrait of his sitter wearing a very similar hat and dress [11374].

Elisabeth de Gramont was born on 23 April 1875, the daughter of Antoine XI-Agénor, 11th Duc de Gramont and his first wife, Princesse Isabelle de Beauvau-Craon, who died four days after her birth. On 3 June 1896, Elisabeth married Philibert Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre (later the duc de Clermont-Tonnerre).^[1] Together they had two daughters: Béatrix (born 1897) and Diane (born 1902) [111338]. Although Elisabeth was in love with her husband when she married him, her life with him soon became an ordeal, as Philibert could not bear the fact that his young wife was a free-thinker, and not a docile housewife. His physical violence caused the still-birth of two of their children. He humiliated her and blackmailed her when she tried to leave him. The marriage eventually ended in divorce in 1920, partly as a result of her affair with the Parisian socialite and decadent, Natalie Barney, who would remain the love of her life. Free from the shackles of her controlling husband, Elisabeth could devote herself to literature, and became a feminist and left-wing advocate, earning herself the nickname of the Red Duchess.^[2] She was famous for her beauty: sophisticated, fashionable and cultured, with shining blue eyes – “oyster eyes”, according to her brothers – and a healthy complexion.^[3] She received in her Salon the greatest artists, poets, and intellectuals of the Belle Epoque, among them the Comte de Montesquiou [4151], to whom she was for a while very close, Arthur Honegger, Paul Valéry, Louis Aragon, Léon Blum, Gertrude Stein and Marcel Proust. She wrote and published extensive memoirs, in which she recorded the social life of the Faubourg St Germain, giving a comprehensive account of high society in the Belle Epoque. She died on 6 December 1954 at her home in Paris.

SOURCE: Rapazzini, Francesco, Elisabeth de Gramont Avant-Gardiste, collection Vies de Femmes, Fayard, Paris, 2004

PROVENANCE:  

By descent in the family;        

Maison de Gramont Collection, Musée National du Château de Pau

EXHIBITED:           

•Salon de la Société des artistes français, Paris, 1903, nº 1054 or 1055

•Galerie des Artistes modernes, Les Onzes, Paris, 1907

•Musée National du Château de Pau, La Belle époque des Gramont au temps des équipages, 8 October 1994- 31 January 1995, n° 31

•Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Marcel Proust, 2000, nº 166

LITERATURE:  

•Arsène, Alexandre, ‘Société des Artistes français, Salon de 1903’, Figaro Illustré, nº

159, June 1903, p. 19

•Gramont, Elisabeth de, Mémoires, Au Temps des Equipages, Paris, Grasset, 1928

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 81, ill. 42

•Montesquiou-Fezansac, Robert (de), « Un Portraitiste Lyrique,Philipp Laszlo », in L’Art et Les Artistes, June 1906, II, nº 15, p. 101

•Tadié, Jean-Yves, ed., Marcel Proust, l’écriture et les arts, Bibliothèque de France

Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 1999, ill. pl. 166, p. 204

•Schleinitz, Otto (von), Künstler Monographien, n° 106, Ph A. von László, Bielefeld

and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, ill. pl. 57 & 58, p. 50 (illustration of original group portrait prior to being cut down)

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 210

•Ribeton, Olivier, Un Musée Gramont à Bayonne, Bayonne, 1986, p. 60, nº 16, ill.

p. 61

•Chaleyssin, Patrick, La Peinture mondaine de 1870 à 1960, Célia Editions, 1993 ill.

pl. 57, p. 32

•Rapazzini, Francesco. Elisabeth de Gramont Avant-Gardiste, collection Vies de Femmes, Fayard, Paris, 2004, ill. between pp. 318-9

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, pp. 63, 66

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, private collection, 27 December 1902 entry, pp. 40-41

CC  2008