4489

Crown Princess Cecilie of Germany, née Duchess of Mecklenburg 1908

Half-length to the left, seated in a gilt armchair upholstered in cream material, wearing a pale yellow silk stole loosely draped around a high necked white dress with flounced cuffs, a large straw hat decorated with white tulle and a pale pink rose, a ring on the third finger of her right hand and a gold bracelet on her right wrist which rests on the arm of the chair, a long pearl necklace with a large sapphire pendant held in her left hand which is raised to her chest, against a landscape background

Oil on canvas, 125 x 86 cm (49 ¼ x 33 ⅞ in.)

Inscribed upper left: P. A. László 1908, XII 

Sitters’ Book, I, opp. f. 83: Cecilie / Kronprinzessin des Deutschen Reiches / und von Preussen, Herzogin von / Mecklenburg. / December 1908 / Potsdam

Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten, Marmorpalais, Potsdam

In October 1908 de László was commissioned to paint a formal portrait of the German Empress Auguste Victoria [4962] for the wardroom of the new warship Schleswig-Holstein. While carrying this out in Potsdam the artist also painted her daughter Princess Victoria Luise [5092], two portrait studies of the German Emperor Wilhelm II [4789] [4958], as well as a portrait of Crown Prince Wilhelm (1882-1951) [111479] and the present portrait of his wife, the Crown Princess Cecilie, both painted in December.

The previous year Cecilie had also been painted for a ship: a full-length seated portrait by Caspar Ritter (1861-1923) to hang in the saloon of the liner Kronprinzessin Cecilie,^[1] showing the demure Princess engulfed in waves of tulle, pink satin and roses. Considering her status of Crown Princess and presumptive future German Empress, there are few portraits of Cecilie. Only very rarely did she agree to sittings and, apart from de László, none of the important artists of her time painted her.^[2] The present portrait, which shows the 22-year-old Princess in an elegant white dress with a large hat, is considered the most important portrait of Cecilie. The composition is “full of verve, goes back to 18th century English portraiture [and] radiates aristocratic elegance” as Scharmann puts it.^[3]

The sapphire and pearl necklace shown so prominently in the portrait was made by the Court Jeweller in Berlin Gebrüder Friedländer and was given to the Crown Princess in 1906,^[4] allegedly as an attempt by the notoriously unfaithful Crown Prince to conciliate his wife. Cecilie later gave the sapphire to her elder sister Alexandrine, wife of King Christian X of Denmark, as a lifetime loan. After the death of Alexandrine in 1952 it was returned to the Crown Princess and is said to have been sold on her behalf by her confidant Otto Groha for 125,000 German Marks. The reasons for this reported sale remain unknown.^[5] 

The painting originally hung in the Cecilienhof, the vast home of Crown Prince and Princess in Potsdam, built between 1913 and 1917 in the style of an English Tudor country house, and was later transferred to the Marmorpalais in Potsdam.

A reproduction of the picture is included in the photograph of the artist in his London studio in 1910, not long after he moved from Vienna (illustrated above). While he lived at 3 Palace Gate (1907-1921), he rented a studio in West House, Campden Hill Road  from the widow of George Henry Boughton, R.A. The other significant pictures included (some in reproduction) are: His Holiness Pope Leo XIII [6027], the Artist’s Mother [11634], Fürstin Lily Kinsky [10972], Baronin Margarethe von Reischach [2988], Commander William Edmund Goodenough [5366], Falling Leaves [10672], Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine [5941], The German Emperor Wilhelm II  [4789], Eva Guinness [5440] and Princess Leopold von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen [8497].

Cecilie Auguste Marie, Duchess of Mecklenburg, was born at Schwerin on 20 September 1886, the youngest daughter of Friedrich Franz III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1851-1897), and his wife Anastasia (1860-1922), only daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaievitch of Russia and the granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I. When Cecilie was only ten years old her father died and her mother, who had never felt at home in Mecklenburg, decided from then on to spend the winters in Cannes and the summers in her Russian homeland. The future Crown Princess grew up in a climate of artistic and cultural open-mindedness, made extensive journeys with her mother and spoke several languages.

From the day the young Cecilie first appeared in Potsdam in 1904 she became renowned for her grace, charm and beauty. Countess Mathilde Keller, one of the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting, noted in her diary: “… very dutiful, intelligent, charming, despite her youth she knows how to deal with people … tall, slender, dark intelligent eyes and dark hair.”^[6] At six foot Cecilie was as tall as her future husband. She not only impressed the Prussian court but particularly won the hearts of the Prussians.  

On 6 June 1905 Cecilie married Wilhelm, the eldest son of the Emperor Wilhelm II. A year after the marriage, on 4 July 1906, their first son, Wilhelm, was born. Five more children were to follow: Louis Ferdinand (born 1907), Hubertus (born 1909), Friedrich (born 1911), Alexandrine (born 1915) and Cecilie (born 1917). Although the marriage seemed happy and harmonious, Cecilie was hurt deeply by her husband’s numerous affairs. She found her fulfillment in charitable work and in 1913 she founded the “Cecilienhilfe”, a charity whose highest aim was “to enable an appropriate education and instruction for children and young people, as well as the care of old persons or people in need of help.”^[7] 

After the abdication of the Emperor and his son in 1918, Cecilie refused to join her family in exile, preferring to stay in Potsdam with her children. Thus she became the foremost representative of the former Imperial family in Germany, though she was realistic enough not to believe in a restoration of the monarchy. Her husband returned to Germany in 1923 but the couple had long drifted apart and decided to lead separate lives. The Cecilienhof in Potsdam was restored to the family in 1926 and Cecilie lived there until February 1945 when she had to flee the Soviet Army. A few months later the Cecilienhof became the venue for the Potsdam Conference, and to make way for this the entire contents were removed by the Soviets to a depot where they were destroyed by fire in July 1945. Remarkably the present portrait survived.

The Crown Princess died aged sixty-seven in Bad Kissingen in Bavaria on 6 May 1954 from a stroke, 3 years after her husband.^[8]   

EXHIBITED:

•Paris Salon, Salon de la société des artistes français, March 1909, no. 1053

•Galerie Schulte, Berlin, 1908/9^[9]

•Stiftung Schlösser und Gärten Potsdam-Sanssouci, Potsdamer Schlösser und Gärten

Bau- und Gartenkunst vom 17. bis 20. Jahrhundert, 26 June - 22 August 1993, III. 49

•Marmorpalais, Potsdam, Zwischen Monarchie und Republik: Deutschlands letzte Kronprinzessin Cecilie, 9 May - 1 August 2004, no. 31

•Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte/Kutschstall, Potsdam, Preussens Eros – Preussens Musen/Frauenbilder aus Brandenburg, 24 September 2010 - 2 January 2011, no. to be confirmed

LITERATURE:

•Kunstgewerbeblatt, Leipzig 1907

•Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, no. 12, 21 March 1909 ill. cover

•Paris Salon 1909, catalogue, p. 88, hors concours, no. 1053, ill. p. 161

•The Sphere, 10 July 1909, ill. p. 33 

•Illustrated London News, 24 June 1911

•Illustrated London News (New York Edition), 8 July, 1911, ill. p. 65

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, n° 106, Ph A. von László, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1913, p. 91, ill. pl. 106

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a painter, London, 1939, p. 264

•Société des artistes français, Salon, Paris, Bibliothèque des annales, 1909, ill. p. 161

•Taut, Franz, Kronprinzessin Cecilie, Aktueller Buchverlag, Bad Wörishofen, 1958, ill. frontispiece

•Hassels, Michael (ed.), Potsdamer Schlösser und Gärten. Bau- und Gartenkunst vom 17. bis 20. Jahrhundert, III. 49, p. 315 and ill. p. 316  

•Bauer, Alexandra Nina and Reichelt, Petra (ed.), Zwischen Monarchie und Republik: Cecilie (1886-1954), Deutschlands letzte Kronprinzessin, Potsdam, 2004, ill. [detail], front cover, ill. p. 41, plate 31

•Kirschstein, Jörg, “Kronprinzessin Cecilie von Preussen – Eine Biographie”, in: Bauer, Alexandra Nina and Reichelt, Petra (ed.), Zwischen Monarchie und Republik: Cecilie (1886-1954), Deutschlands letzte Kronprinzessin, Potsdam, 2004, pp. 9-25

•Scharmann, Rudolf G., “Von unvergleichlicher Schönheit – Kronprinzessin Cecilie im Bildnis”, in: Bauer, Alexandra Nina and Reichelt, Petra (ed.), Zwischen Monarchie und Republik: Cecilie (1886-1954), Deutschlands letzte Kronprinzessin, Potsdam, 2004, pp. 37-46

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László. His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, p. 117

•Zajonz, Michael, "Englische Eleganz. Cecilie, Kronprinzessin von Preußen", in: Kuhrau, Sven & Marschall Isabelle von, im Auftrag des Hauses der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte, Preussens Eros – Preussens Musen/Frauenbilder aus Brandenburg, Verlag Kettler, Bönen/Westfalen 2010, pp. 162-166, ill. p. 162 & cover

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 117

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 155, ill.

•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. 66

•DLA128-0001, letter from Philip de László to Lucy de László, 23 November 1908

•DLA162-0327, Pesti Hírlap, 20 December 1908, p. 8

•DLA1912 parcel, German publication, 6 April 1912, ill.

•DLA090-0205, miscellaneous press cuttings, [undated]

•DLA091-0241, French press cutting, [undated, page unknown]

•DLA041-0008, letter from Julie Moltke to de László, 12 December 1908

ATG 2011