3211

Queen Marie of Romania, née Princess Marie of Edinburgh 1936

Seated full-length on a gilt upholstered chair, turned to the right, looking to the left, wearing a dark gown with white trimmings, the blue sash of the Grand Cross Order of Carol I,^[1] a tiara, a necklace of black and white pearls and a longer necklace with a pendant which she holds in her left hand on her lap

Oil on canvas, 191 x 115 cm (75 ¼ x 45 ½ in.)

Inscribed top left: MARINA REGINA ROMANIAE. 

Indistinctly inscribed lower left: de László

Laib L17532L(882) / C24(27)

Sitters’ Book II, f. 85: Marie / Marie, / Cotroceni / Feb. 1936

The National Museum of Art, Bucharest

De László first painted Queen Marie of Romania [3200] in 1924 in London, while she was accompanying her husband King Ferdinand on a State visit. In 1936 the artist accepted a commission to paint three portraits for the National Bank of Romania: her son King Carol II [4220], the present portrait and a posthumous portrait of her husband, King Ferdinand [4217]. The artist recorded in his diary that he was paid £3,000 for the commission.^[2]

Queen Marie wrote detailed accounts of her sittings to de László in letters to the writer Hector Bolitho.^[3] The first, dated 8 January 1936, anticipates his arrival at the palace of Cotroceni: “by the way, de Laszlo is coming to paint a large picture of me for the National Bank. I wonder what he will be able to make of my sixty years!”^[4] The artist’s first conception for the portrait [2961], for which he made a preparatory drawing [111639] and two oil sketches [3204] & [84], was three-quarter length in full court dress with decorations. The sittings for these exhausted the sitter and did not please the artist, who chose to abandon it and start again.

Queen Marie records the process in her diary entry for 12 February 1936: “Laszlo suddenly came to me and said that if I would have the patience to sit he wanted to make another picture instead of the one he had begun. He had come with a preconstructed idea, but having now lived so closely in my company he felt he had not properly got hold of my personality of today, in his big picture which was too conventional. He understood now what I had said to him, when he arrived, that I had shed the time of splendour and sumptuous clothes and having seen me in a certain simple, but very ample black velvet dress with wide sleeves trimmed with dark brown fur, he was haunted day and night with the burning desire to paint me in this, instead of the rather gorgeous, but more queenly, conventional picture he had begun. He could have the patience and energy to begin all over again, would I?” … “He is crazy about this picture, feeling that it is going to be good.  He dreams of a stunning portrait which he will exhibit all over Europe!” ^[5]

The Governor of the National Bank arrived at the Cotroceni palace to view the finished picture 11 March. The artist wrote that it was greatly admired by the Governor and “I too was pleasantly surprised seeing the portrait varnished – it is lovely in tone – the velvet – transparent – I count it amongst my very best.” The varnishing was done by the artist’s studio assistant Frederick Harwood, who accompanied the artist to Bucharest.  

During his six-week stay in Bucharest, de László completed eleven portraits and six preparatory oil sketches of the Romanian Royal Family. In addition to the three portraits for the National Bank, these included the abandoned three-quarter length of the Queen [2961] and its two preparatory oil sketches [3204] & [84], two half-length study portraits, one in mourning [3208] and another in traditional Romanian dress [3207], two half-length study portraits of the sitter’s son King Carol II, one in naval uniform [3222] and an informal portrait in hunting attire [3225], a half-length portrait of her grandson, Prince Michael [4218], and a preparatory oil sketch [3231] for that picture, and two portraits of the King’s mistress Madame Lupescu [3237] & [3233], for which there is a preparatory oil sketch [3237] for the latter one.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [2961].

PROVENANCE:         

The National Bank of Romania;

Transferred to the National Gallery of Romania at an unknown date

EXHIBITED :          

•Paris Salon, May 1936, catalogue, p. 61, hors concours, no. 1444

•Grand Palais, Paris, 30 April 1936, no. 1444

•Muzeul de Artă Constanţa, Balcicul în pictura românească, November 2003-January 2004

•Grand Palais, Paris. Cartier: Style and History, 4 December 2013-16 February 2014

LITERATURE:

•Roumania, Queen Marie of, Diaries, Vol.III, 195 (film reel 489), pp. 94-98, National

Archives, Bucharest

•The Illustrated London News, 11 April 1936, p. 616

•Rutter, Owen. Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp.175, 352-3, 376.

•Elsberry, Terence. Marie of Romania, The Intimate Life of a Twentieth Century

 Queen, Cassel, London, 1973, p. 263

•Bolitho, Hector. A Biographer’s Notebook, Longmans Green & Co., London, New York, Toronto, 1950, pp. 41- 45, 58, ill. p. 41

•The Queen, 11 June 1936, front cover, ill.

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 268, 270, ill. 139

•Cluzel, Jean-Paul, Cartier: Style and History, Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais, Paris, 2013, p. 91, ill.

•Ion, Narcis Dorin, Maria a României, Portretul unei mari regine [Queen Marie of Romania, Portrait of a Great Queen], vol. 1, Editura Măiastra, Târgu Jiu, 2022, front cover, ill., p. 265, ill.

•DLA135-0067, letter from de László to Marczell ‘Marczi’ László, 12 February 1936

•DLA126-0336, Pesti Hírlap, 20 March 1936, p. 16

•DLA125-006, Philip de László diary, 1936

•DLA123-0078, letter from Queen Marie of Romania to de László, 29 November 1936

•DLA 1937 parcel, English publication, ill.

SMdeL & KF 2014