3715

Princess Maria Luisa of Bulgaria 1894

Seated three-quarter length and looking to the right, wearing a white evening gown with full sleeves, jewels, decorations and the Bourbon crown

Oil on canvas, 123 x 92.5 cm (48 ½ x 36 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: László F / 1894 / X Euxinograde

Upper left: the Bulgarian Royal Coat of Arms

Private Collection

In the summer of 1894 de László travelled to Bulgaria to paint the Bulgarian Royal family and other important sitters, see [3937]. As well as the present portrait, he painted the sitter’s husband Prince Ferdinand [3937] and two portraits of their first-born baby son Prince Boris [3712] & [3934].

De László’s first impression of the princess was that of a “good-natured, ugly, fragile woman, with dark complexion and hair, and nice blue eyes.”^[1] He also described her personality and attire during the sittings: “In the mornings I used to paint the Prince, and in the afternoons the Princess, whose temperament was the antithesis of his. She was very calm and unassuming, and I painted her in a white dress with a beautiful crown – of which the design was the Bourbon lilies – and her decorations.”^[2] Nadejda Muir’s account of Princess Maria Luisa’s official welcome ceremony at the time of her betrothal to Prince Ferdinand at Sistov in 1893 further compliments her as being a charming and vivacious young woman.^[3] Contrary to de László’s retrospective judgements of his early pictures as being over-cautious and inexperienced,^[4] Muir asserts that de László was at the height of his powers during this time and that his portrait attributed the sitter with: “the gentle, ethereal appearance of a little Byzantine saint, wearing her fleur-de-lis decked crown with amused detachment.”^[5]

The ruby and diamond tiara worn by Princess Maria Luisa in de László’s portrait was given to her on her wedding day. It was made for her by the Viennese jeweller Köchert, whose designs were inspired by the art of the past. The fleur-de-lis motif tended to be worn by the women of the royal house of Bourbon.^[6] The artist made a copy of the present portrait for the Sobranje, the Bulgarian Parliament, and he kept one of the Kosmos colour reproductions in his London studio. The National Historical Museum in Sofia holds another, unsigned, copy of the present portrait.

Princess Maria Luisa of Bourbon-Parma was born in 1870, the daughter of Robert, Duke of Bourbon-Parma and Princess María Pía of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. On 20 April 1893, she married Ferdinand of Bulgaria (1861-1948), the eldest son of Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Clémentine, daughter of King Louis-Philippe I of France. They had four children: Boris (born 1894), Kyril (born 1895), Euxodia (born 1898) and Nadejda (born 1899). Princess Maria Luisa never accepted that her eldest son, Boris, after his initial Roman Catholic baptism, had also been baptized Orthodox and brought up in the Orthodox faith. She never became Queen of Bulgaria, as she died on 10 September 1899, the day after she gave birth to her fourth child. Her husband was not proclaimed King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria until 1908.

EXHIBITED:                

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Millennium Exhibition, 1896, no. 624 (in the property of the Princess)

•Kunstsalon Schneider, Frankfurt, winter 1896-97

LITERATURE:        

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 131-144, 148

•Muir, Nadejda, Dimitri Stancioff, Patriot and Cosmopolitan, 1864-1940, Murray, London, 1957, p. 66

•Scarisbrick, Diana, Tiara, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000, ill. p. 23

•Sampedro Escolar, José Luis, & Saínz de Medrano, Ricardo Mateos, Joyas Reales, Fastos y Boato, La Esfera de los Libros, Madrid, 2009, ill. 267

•Hart-Davis, Duff, Philip de László, His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, pp. 39, 41, 44, 45

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, pp. 8, 16

•DLA140-0026, Szana, Thomas von,  Die moderne ungarische Kunst aus der Millenniums

Austellung in Budapest“, in Die Kunst für Alle, vol. 12, iss. 1, 1 October 1896, ill p. 4

•NSzL150-0009, letter from de László to Lippich, 8 November 1894

•DLA140-0027, “Studio-Talk”, The Studio, vol. 7, no. 37, April 1896, p. 182

•DLA162-0081, Pesti Hírlap, 5 May 1896, p. 8

•DLA140-0074, Über Land und Meer, no. 21, Stuttgart, October 1898-1899, ill., front cover

•NSzL150-0075, letter from de László to Lippich, 28 April or May1899

•DLA140-0244, Colucci, Virginia, Un Maestro del Ritratto: Philip A. Làszló (sic), Siena: L. Lazzeri, 1910, p. 5

With our grateful thanks to Ilmo. Sr. Don Javier González de Vega y San Román and Mrs Susan M. de Laszlo  for their assistance in preparing the biography for this entry.

AG 2008