110801

UNTRACED

Madame György Mailáth de Székhely, née Baroness Stephanie Hilleprand von Prandau 1897

Bust-length to the left, head turned in three-quarter profile and looking to the viewer, wearing a black dress with white ruff collar and a stole

Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower right: László F. / 897 [indistinct]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 12: Stephanie Mailáth-Prandau [3 or 4 May 1899]

De László travelled to Kassa in the spring of 1896 to paint a half-length portrait of Bishop Zsigmond Bubics [110798]. During his stay at the Bishop’s Palace, he met Count József Mailáth [110819], who lived on a nearby estate at Perbenyik. The Count was very impressed by the Bishop’s portrait and commissioned the artist to paint himself and members of his family. Between September 1896 and January 1897 de László made extended visits to Perbenyik and painted eleven portraits of the Mailáth family.

Madame György Mailáth was painted in Budapest in early 1897, the last of the family to sit for the artist. The portrait is thought to have been started in February, as indicated by a letter from Count Mailáth to de László: “My mother agreed to sit for you from the 24th – 25th [February] every day from 3 to 5. Please don’t exhaust her and finish the painting as soon as possible. Please find enclosed the postcard from my mother, stating that she agrees to sit for you, also saying that she is going to Komárom for 6 – 8 days. She will be in Buda next Wednesday, on the 24th, so it would be good to start on Thursday, the 25th. I will confirm my mother’s arrival to Buda.”^[1] The fee for the portrait was sent on 28 March and Count Mailáth saw the portrait for the first time in April. “I will be in Budapest on the 2nd and 3rd of April and will take a look at the portrait of my mother.”^[2]

When de László visited Hungary in 1927 to paint Admiral Horthy [5684] and Count István Bethlen [2487] he met Count József again. Mailáth subsequently reminisced about their first meeting in 1896 in an article published in Budapesti Hírlap in 1927: “When László left Perbenyik for Budapest I wrote to my mother – who spent the winter there – asking her to have her portrait painted. László actually made a portrait of the old lady. It is in Rembrandt’s style, and it is a superb picture. The Perbenyik pictures and my mother’s portrait enabled László – as he laughingly told us himself – to set up a studio in a Budapest villa.^[3] We went to see him there, he was then just painting Countess Sándor Andrássy [110812] and Countess Imre Széchényi née Countess Mária Andrássy [2830].”^[4]

The present portrait was exhibited at the 1897 Spring Exhibition of the Hungarian Fine Arts Society in Budapest together with a portrait of the sitter’s second son, József [111842] and a double portrait of his daughters, Erzsébet and Stefanie [13008]. It was an immediate success and de László was awarded the small state gold medal.

According to Count József, the portrait was “the first milestone in his great career”^[5] and the artist himself wrote to him: “I myself am of opinion that it is one of my best pictures.”^[6] The art critic of Pester Lloyd noted a slight similarity with Franz von Lenbach’s (1836-1904) portrait of Princess Clementine, an artist admired by de László.^[7]

Prior to the Mailáth commissions the artist had excelled in genre painting, but after the success of these portraits, he gave up this style of painting completely. His last genre picture, Girl with a Wheelbarrow [9003], was painted in August 1896 during a visit to the country house of Dr Zsigmond László, Ministerial Counsellor at the Ministry of Justice [13399].

In addition to the pictures exhibited at the Spring Exhibition, de László also painted another portrait of the sitter’s son [110819], two further portraits of the sitter’s granddaughters Erzsébet and Stefanie Mailáth [112504][110899], two portraits of her grandson  József Mailáth, Jr. [111845][113403] and two portraits of her daughter-in-law Countess József Mailáth [111844][112206].

The sitter visited the artist’s studio in Vienna again on 3 or 4 May 1899 with her daughter, Sarolta Mailáth, wife of Chlodwig Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Imperial and Royal Chamberlain.^[8] The Chamberlain was the first cousin of de László’s important patrons Prince Max von Ratibor [10502] and the Duke of Ratibor [7478].  

Baroness Stephanie Hilleprand von Prandau was born on 6 December 1831 in the castle of Valpó in Slavonia^[9], the daughter of Baron Gustav Hilleprand von Prandau and his wife Adele, née Cseh de Szent-Katolna. The Hilleprand family had been given the estate and fortress of Valpó in the district of Verőcze in 1721 and subsequently rebuilt it as a castle in contemporary baroque style while retaining the basic characteristics of the mediaeval building. The 60 acres of garden were landscaped in the English style.

In about 1851 in Pécs she met György Mailáth de Székhely (1818-1883) a landowner and politician in County Baranya. Their engagement was disapproved of by the husbands of  Stefanie's sisters, Count Paul Pejachevich and Count Rudolf Normann-Ehrenfels, who considered Mailáth of inferior rank. They told their father-in-law not to allow his daughter to marry a commoner to which Baron Prandau replied, “I am happy to give my daughter, Stefania, to György Mailáth as I want a smart person to join the family.^[10]

Mailáth later became Lord Chancellor of Hungary, Judex Curiae, Speaker of the Upper House, and worked closely with Count György Apponyi on the proposal of the Compromise, which established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867.^[11] 

They married on 15 April 1852 at Valpó. There were seven children of the marriage, five sons: György (born 1854), József (born 1858), István Géza (born 1860), László (born 1862) and Gusztáv (born 1864), all of whom were created Counts of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1885; and two daughters: Etelka (born 1853) and Sarolta (born 1856).

Through their children’s marriages, the Mailáth family was related to many of the great aristocratic families of Hungary. György was married to Karolina Zichy (1862-1923); József to Countess Mária Széchényi de Sárvár-Felsővidék (1863-1932); István to Countess Mária Zichy, lady-in-waiting; László to Countess Sztáray. Gusztáv was the Bishop of Gyulafehérvár, later honorary archbishop, Etelka, lady-in-waiting, married to Marquess Ede Pallavicini. Sarolta was lady-in-waiting to Empress Elisabeth [7857] until her marriage to Chlodwig Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Imperial and Royal Chamberlain.

The sitter was known as a great beauty and at the 1867 Coronation she was compared with Empress Elisabeth and Baroness Pál Sennyey in the national press. She served as lady-in-waiting to Empress Elisabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and King of Hungary [12700]. She served briefly as the President of the Women’s Charity Association in Buda and founded a girls’ school and a kindergarten in Zavar. She was awarded the Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Elisabeth by the Emperor and was a Dame of the Order of the Starry Cross of which the Empress was Grand Master.

On her father’s death in 1885 Stephanie inherited Donji Miholjac, which hosted many shooting parties. Members of the Habsburg ruling family visited the castle several times. Emperor Franz Joseph, King Carol of Romania [4220] and Franz Ferdinand stayed at the castle during a military exercise in 1909. The family spent most of their time on their estate at Bakócza or at their palace in Pécs.

The sitter’s husband was murdered on 29 March 1883, during a robbery at his home in Buda. She survived him for some thirty years, dying on 5 August 1914, the day after the outbreak of the First World War, at Mosdós in County Somogy.

PROVENANCE:

Count József Mailáth

EXHIBITED:

•Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Tavaszi kiállίtás [Spring Exhibition], 1897, no. 40

LITERATURE:

•Die Kunst für Alle, Ausstellungen und Sammlungen, 15 June 1897, p. 292

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

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 46

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 28

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 17

•DLA 029-0014, letter from József Mailáth to de László, 20 February 1897

•DLA 029-0012 letter from József Mailáth to de László, 28 March 1897

•DLA162-0185, Pesti Hírlap, 12 May 1897, p. 7

•DLA170-0009, Pécsi Közlöny, 18 May 1897, p. 2  

•DLA162-0337, Pesti Hírlap, 20 May 1897, p. 7

•DLA043-0060, Silberstein, Dr. Adolf , Spring Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus, Pester Lloyd, 23 April 1897

•DLA140-0039, Vasárnapi Újság, volume 44, issue 22, Budapest, 1897, p. 348

•NSzL150-0101, letter from de László to Elek Lippich [Between 1 and 7 January 1900]

•DLA111-0141, Count József Mailáth, Egyet-mást László Fülöpről [A few things about Philip László], In: Budapesti Hίrlap, 13 November 1927

•DLA030-0015, letter from József Mailáth to de László, 23 January 1928

•DLA025-0008, letter from István Bárczy to de László, 9 September 1937

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