10852

The Infante don Jaime de Borbón y Battenberg 1927

Half length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing the dress uniform and insignia of a Maestrante of Seville, the Order of the Golden Fleece round his neck and the sash and insignia of the Order of Charles III^[1]

Oil on canvas, 83.4 x 57.6 cm (32 ¾ x 22 ¾ in.)  

Inscribed lower left: de László, Madrid 1927. III. 

Inscribed top left: SA. EL IFANTE [sic] D. JAIME. MAESTRANTE DE SEVILLA

Sitters’ Book II, f. 53: Jaime / 21- III-1927 Palacio Real-Madrid.

Private Collection

This is the only portrait de László painted of Infante Don Jaime. On his first visit to Madrid in 1910, the artist painted the Queen Mother, Maria Cristina [7922], the King [7925] and Queen [7933] and their eldest son and heir apparent, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias [10856]. On his second visit in the spring of 1927, de László painted the six children of Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenia and as such, was the only artist to paint the entire Spanish royal family.

On 24 March 1927, Lucy explained in a letter to her son Paul: “I don’t know when we’ll be able to leave Madrid – Dads has now been asked to paint all the six children at the Palace, besides he must paint the British Ambassador & his daughter.  He has finished Infante “Heimie” (James) the 2nd boy, about 19 – very dark and handsome.”^[2] The composition of this portrait and its palette is strongly reminiscent of the famous portrait of the Duke of Wellington in full dress uniform by Goya.^[3]

Don Jaime was born on 23 June 1908 at La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia, the second son of Alfonso XIII of Spain and Princess Victoria Eugénie of Battenberg. It was soon discovered that he had serious hearing difficulties.  Then at the age of four, suffering from an acute ear infection, he underwent an unsuccessful operation which made him a deaf-mute. Over many years two Valencian nuns from the Order of the Immaculate Conception, who were experienced in teaching to deaf children, worked with Jaime at the Royal Palace and he became more confident in his speech. He learnt to lip-read four languages: his native Spanish, and French, English and German from members of the family and the royal governesses. In his twenties, he often stood in for the King at public events and visited various cities with the dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera [111272], since his eldest brother was too ill to lead an active public life. Don Jaime looked very like his father, slim and energetic, though slightly taller. When representing the King at an Easter procession in Granada in the spring of 1931, he was threatened by a fanatic republican demonstrator brandishing a pistol and shouting “Death to the King”. He had already faced attack when launching a yacht in Valencia two years before. On these occasions, and others, Jaime was praised for his courage and dignity.

After his elder brother renounced his right of succession in 1933, don Jaime automatically became Prince of Asturias and heir to the throne, but this position was short-lived, because leading monarchists soon convinced Alfonso XIII of his second son’s unsuitability to reign. The King persuaded don Jaime to sign his renunciation in favour of his younger brother, Juan [12015]. At this point don Jaime adopted the title of Duke of Segovia.

In March 1935, he married Emmanuelle de Dampierre, (1913-2012) the daughter of French and Italian nobility, but not of equal rank, and so King Alfonso never granted the title of Royal Highnesses to the two sons of the couple, Alfonso and Gonzalo. The marriage was short-lived. Jaime and Emanuelle’s 1947 divorce in a Bucharest court was recognised in Italy and Austria in 1949, though never in Spain. They both remarried that same year, Jaime marrying civilly a divorced German nightclub singer, Carlota Tiedemann, by whom he had no children.

When his father died in 1941, don Jaime proclaimed himself the legitimate heir to the French throne and head of the House of Bourbon and became known as the Duke of Anjou. In the opinion of some scholars he was de jure King of France. In 1949 Jaime revoked his renunciation of the Spanish throne and in 1964 he took the title Duke of Madrid as head of the Carlist branch of the Spanish succession. But in 1969 he definitively renounced the Spanish succession in favour of his nephew, King Juan Carlos I of Spain. Nevertheless, when in 1971 Jaime attended the wedding of his eldest son, don Alfonso de Borbón Dampierre, to María del Carmen Martínez Bordiú, granddaughter of General Franco, he behaved again as though he were Head of the Spanish Dynasty and offered to bestow the Order of the Golden Fleece on General Franco, who refused to accept it.

Don Jaime died on 20 March 1975 at St.Gallen in Switzerland, from a suspicious blow to the head. He was buried at El Escorial together with his brothers in the Pantheon of the Infantes in 1985. 

PROVENANCE:

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, the sitter’s mother,^[4] until her death in 1969;

By descent to the Duke of Anjou and 1st Duke of Cádiz, until his death in 1989

EXHIBITED:

•Museo de Arte Moderno, Madrid, 12-16 May 1927 ^[5]

•The French Gallery, London,  A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1927, no. 19

LITERATURE:

•Letter from Lucy de László to Paul de Laszlo, private collection, 24 March 1927        

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 369

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 207

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 166

With our grateful thanks to Ilmo. Sr. Don Javier González de Vega y San Román for his assistance in preparing the biography for this entry.

SMdeL 2011