4457

Portrait drawing

Fürstin Maria Teresa von Hohenzollern, née Princess Bourbon-Two Sicilies 1900 

Head and shoulders to the left, her face turned slightly in three-quarter profile, looking away from the viewer, her hair pinned up

Red chalk with white highlights on buff cardboard, 50.7 x 40.7 cm (20 x 15 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. / 1900 / I.   

Inscribed lower left: Maria Theresia / Erbprinzessin Hohenzollern / Bourbon / 1900 [in the sitter’s hand]

Sitters’ Book I, f. 24: Marie Theresie Erbprinzessin / von Hohenzollern Pr von / Bourbon 1900

Study Inventory, p. 137 (7): Prinzessin Marie Therese of Hohenzollern

Private Collection

De László stayed with the Imperial German family at the end of 1899 and in early 1900 to paint a formal half-length portrait of Maria Teresa von Hohenzollern [4448]. It was presumably at the end of his stay at Potsdam that he made the present portrait, which he asked his sitter to sign for him to keep as a souvenir in his collection. De László also made two very similar drawings of her in charcoal to keep as a memento [10524][114327]. An unsourced French press cutting in de László’s archive suggests that it was one of these two drawings which the artist showed in Rome, in Bishop Fráknoi’s house, alongside the portraits he had just completed in the Holy City, most notably those of Pope Leo XIII [4509] and Cardinal Rampolla [4911], but also of Maria Teresa’s mother Mathilde, Countess of Trani [7363].^[1] 

It was not unusual for the artist to make drawings as mementos, especially early in his career,^[2] and to request the autographs of his royal sitters. Seven years later, when he painted Princess Leopold of Hohenzollern [4461], Maria Teresa’s mother-in-law, he also made such a drawing of her, and it is likely that he also requested the autograph of Maria Teresa’s daughter, Princess Auguste Viktoria, when he drew her in 1906 [13560].^[3]

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [4448].

PROVENANCE:  
In the possession of the artist on his death

EXHIBITED:

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Tavaszi kiállítás [Spring Exhibition], 1900, no. 124 (private collection)

•Fine Art Society, London, An Exhibition of Portrait Paintings and Drawings by Philip A. László, May and June 1907, n° 50 (could also refer to [10524])

LITERATURE:  

•Schleinitz, Otto (von), Künstler Monographien, n° 106, Ph A. von László, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1913, p. 58

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 181-2, 201        

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Philip de László. His Life and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010, pp. 62-63

•DLA162-0118, Pesti Hírlap, 8 April 1900, p. 7

•DLA090-0234, unsourced French press cutting

CC & AG 2011