4302

Adolf Laub, the Artist’s Father  1903

Half-length almost full-face to the left, wearing a pale shirt, beige tie, dark suit and gold watch chain in his waistcoat, with a monocle or key attached

Oil canvas, 79 x 63 cm (31 x 24 ⅞ in.)

Private Collection

There exist two other almost identical portraits of the artist’s father, which were probably painted by the artist for his siblings. The first of these three versions was painted a year earlier and inscribed by the artist to his father in red paint, see [10494] & [7989]. It has been assumed that the present portrait is the one illustrated in Otto von Schleinitz’s work in 1913,^[1] as it remained in Budapest in the possession of the artist’s brother’s family until the year 2000.

The artist’s father was a somewhat shadowy figure in de László’s early life. Born in 1840 or 1841, he married Johanna Goldreich in 1863 or 1864 and, according to Owen Rutter, the artist’s biographer, he ran a small business. He was a tailor, specializing in military uniforms, and his wife initially helped him with the work. One of de László’s first memories was a fireside scene, he sitting beside his mother during the short winter afternoons, while she was making garments on her sewing machine. Another source^[2] described him as 'a designer, maker and supplier of ‘Ruritania Hussar’ uniforms who employed around three hundred workers’ and who had ambitions for his son to become an Hussar and certainly not an artist.  

Adolf Laub was of uncertain temper with his wife and family and it was the young Philip’s uncle (his mother’s brother, also Philip), who took an interest in the boy’s welfare and helped to promote his talents. Letters from de László’s brother, Marczell (Marczi) [6610], suggest that their father suffered from alcoholism or depression.^[3] It would seem that Adolf became estranged from his family, as de László built a house for his mother attached to his new studio home in Pest (Pálma utca 10) in 1897 and his father does not appear in the artist’s wedding photographs taken at his bride’s family home near Dublin in 1900.  Adolf Laub died in Budapest on 19 September 1904.

PROVENANCE:          

Marczell László, the artist’s brother;

By descent from Marczell László’s second wife;

Sold at Kieselbach on 11 December 1999, lot 143

LITERATURE:          

•Schleinitz, Otto (von), Künstler Monographien, n°106, Ph A. von László, Bielefeld and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 48, pl. 54

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 72

•DLA116-0024, letter from Marczell László to Philip de László, 21 August 1924

SdeL 2008