13094
Margaret Preston Draper, Princess Andrea Boncompagni 1926
Seated half-length in profile to the right, her head turned in semi-profile, wearing a pale green evening gown, a gold embroidered organza stole around her shoulders, holding a long row of pearls in her right hand
Oil on canvas, 92.7 x 74.4 cm (36 ½ x 29 ¼ in.)
Inscribed lower left: de László / Paris 1926
Sitters’ Book II, f. 50: Margaret Draper Boncompagni / November 10, 1926
Private Collection
Margaret Andrea Draper was born in Boston on 18 March 1891, the daughter of General William Franklin Draper (1842-1910)[1] and Susan Christy Preston (1853-1919). She was considered a great beauty and inherited half of her father’s fortune, making her one of the most desirable women in the United States. She famously wore a string of pearls worth $30,000 on the occasion of her society debut at a Washington ball. The sitter was also presented at Court at Buckingham Palace on 10 May 1911.[2]
The sitter had many suitors, but eventually married Prince Andrea Boncompagni-Ludovisi-Rondinelli-Vitelli, Marchese di Bucine (1884-1948) in Washington D.C., on 25 October 1916. It later emerged that the young Prince had apparently married her against his will, and was in love with Blanceflor Bildt, of whom de László painted a striking full-length portrait in 1925 [110907]. The Prince made an agreement with his parents that should the marriage remain childless it would be dissolved after ten years and that in such circumstances, he would receive an income from two large trusts and Margaret would keep her title. The marriage was annulled in 1924, and on 4 December that year, the Prince married Blanceflor Bildt. The sitter returned to Washington, where she died in August 1974. She never remarried. According to her obituary, she had been made an Officer of the Legion of Honor by the French Government.[3]
The sitter was also the subject of a sculpture by Prince Paul Troubetzkoy (1866-1938), dated 1921.[4]
PROVENANCE:
William F. Draper, the sitter’s nephew;
Sold at Sotheby’s New York, Arcade Fine Arts: European and American Paintings sale, 29 June 2004, lot 77 (“Portrait of a Lady”)
LITERATURE:
•Boston Sunday Post, November 23, 1924
CC 2008
[1] General Draper owned a family firm, which manufactured cotton machinery. He served as a member of the U.S. Congress from 1893 to 1897, and as U.S. Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary to Italy from 1897 to 1901. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1910.
[2] “More Americans Presented at Court,” The New York Times, 11 May 1911
[3] “Mrs. Boncompagni,” The New York Times, 30 August 1974
[4] Sotheby’s New York, American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 11 March 1999, lot 75