111028

UNTRACED

Baroness Béla Szentkereszty, née Maria Floresco de Floreşti et Vizureşti 1898

Seated three-quarter length in three-quarter profile to the left in an armchair, wearing a dark off-the-shoulder evening dress with a lace bodice, a very long string of pearls around her neck held in her left hand resting on her lap, wearing pearl earrings and with a pearl pendant hanging from her hair to her forehead, a lace shawl over her left arm, a lorgnette in her right hand resting on her knee; a lightly draped curtain behind

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Upper left: arms of Florescu (l.) and Szentkereszty (r.)

Indistinctly inscribed lower right: László F.E….

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 51: Baronne Szentkereszty Floresco / 17. Juin 1901

Otto von Schleinitz wrote of this portrait in 1913: “The graceful head and indeed the whole figure demonstrate free draughtsmanship and effortless design. The accessories, which are usually only hinted at by László and rarely completed, are [in this case] that much more charming and never detract from the essentials, and in particular they do not lead to superfluous decoration.”[1] In fact many of de László’s formal portraits of this early period still show a greater degree of finish in their clothing and accessories than his portraits of the following decade. Schleinitz, however, was comparing the present portrait with that of Countess János Csekonics [7116] which was exhibited in Budapest in 1899 (winning the Hungarian State Gold Medal) and which shows a somewhat freer treatment of the clothing.

The sitter was born Maria Floresco de Floreşti et Vizureşti in Bucharest on 6 January 1857, one of three daughters of General Ioan Emanuel Floresco[2] (1819-1893), later Royal Romanian Minister of War and twice Prime Minister, and his wife Catarina, Princess Bibesco de Brancovan (c.1827-1866). Her mother died when Maria was nine years old and her father later married Princess Anna Stirbey. Before her marriage Maria was a lady-in-waiting at the Romanian Court. She was a first cousin of Anna de Noailles, née Brancovan, whom de László it is thought first met through the Duc de Gramont in France in 1902.[3] He painted the first of four portraits of Anna de Noailles in 1913 [4472].

On 10 December 1878 Maria married in Bucharest Baron Béla Szentkereszty de Zágon (1851-1925), a rare instance of a Romanian-Hungarian alliance at a time of tension between the two peoples especially in the border regions. The Szentkeresztys were an ancient Transylvanian family; landowners since the 16th century in the County of Háromszék in the Eastern Carpathian mountains (now Covasna, Romania) of which Béla later became Lord Lieutenant (Főispán). Maria also played an active role in the predominantly Hungarian community and was president of the local Red Cross. Three daughters were born in the first five years of their marriage, followed by a son, Béla, in 1885. She died in Budapest on 17 August 1919, soon after the collapse of the short-lived but bloody Communist regime, which had seized power in Hungary in the aftermath of the First World War, and as the Romanian Army occupied northern Hungary.

In the 1890s the Szentkeresztys built a neo-Baroque chateau at Arkus where the present portrait was probably hanging when it was confiscated by the Romanians in 1939. After the Second World War the house was turned into an orphanage and later an agricultural school (Béla had established an important arboretum in the extensive grounds) before becoming a retreat for the Ceaucescu family in the 1980s.

EXHIBITED:

•Műcsarnok, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Téli kiállítás [Winter Exhibition], 1898/9, no. 233

LITERATURE:

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

 and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 39

•NSzL150-0060, letter from de László to Lippich, 30 July 1898

•NSzL150-0061, letter from de László to Lippich, 31 August 1898

•NSzL150-0063, letter from de László to Lippich, 20 September 1898

•NSzL150-0064, letter from de László to Lippich, 12 October 1898

•DLA162-0420, Pesti Hírlap, 25 December 1898, p. 7

•DLA031-0122, letter from Baroness Szentkereszty to de László, 12 January 1899

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911, private collection

•DLA090-0222, press cutting (Hungarian FAS, Winter exhibition)

CWS 2008

[1] Schleinitz, op.cit., p.39f.

[2] Also spelled Florescu.

[3] See Lucy de László’s diary 9 September 1902., op.cit.