12810

Duchesse de Gramont, née Donna Maria Ruspoli  1922

Half-length slightly to the right, facing the viewer, wearing a green head scarf and stole and holding some violet flowers to her breast

Oil on board, 82.6 x 66 cm (32 ½ x 26 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László Paris 1922 XI

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 32: Maria Ruspoli Gramont / 17 Novembre 1922

Private Collection

For this portrait, de László has employed unusual shades of green and purple not often seen in his palette. This, and the swathe of material draped about her head, may be said to reflect the original tastes of his sitter, well known as a fashion icon, whose olive skinned beauty well suited these colours.

Donna Maria Ruspoli was born on 18 May 1888, the only daughter and youngest child, of Prince Luigi Ruspoli (1843-1904) and Countess Clelia Balboni (died 1922). Her father had been the mayor of Rome and descended from ancient Italian nobility. Agénor, 11th duc de Gramont [8752]’s second wife, Marguerite-Alexandrine von Rothschild [6650], died in 1905. In early 1907, he was introduced to Princess Clelia Ruspoli, who was a widow herself. However, when invited for dinner, Agénor set his mind on her daughter Maria, then aged seventeen, whom he married on 1 August 1907 at the Holy Virgin Chapel of the Church of St. Peter at Chaillot, in Paris. She was eighteen, he fifty-six. None of his four children attended the ceremony. There were two children of the marriage, Gabriel (born 1908) and Gratien (born 1909).

Maria Ruspoli was said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, but it seems that she had “the animal sensuality of a courtesan from Antiquity,”^[1] and, much to Agénor’s despair, took many lovers, including the Duke of Westminster, Gabriele d’Annunzio – who left one of his greyhounds with her when he left France in 1915 – and the adventurer Aldo Naldi – with whom she entertained Paul Morand, Jean Cocteau, and many others at his apartment in rue des Ternes in Paris. Following Agénor’s death on 30 January 1925, she spent more and more time at Vigoleno, a 10th-century castle near Milan, which she had bought in 1922. There she restored a small theatre, partly 17th-century, and partly Art Deco, which welcomed illustrious visitors such as Max Ernst, D’Annunzio, Jean Cocteau, and Arthur Rubinstein. On 29 July 1934, she married François Hugo, one of Victor Hugo’s grandsons, after which she came back to Paris and sold Vigoleno Castle. She later moved to New York, where she worked at the Jolas Gallery and dedicated herself to a beauty institute. She possessed one of the finest private collections of French impressionists, which she later bequeathed to the nation. Maria Hugo died in August 1976.

PROVENANCE:         

Count Decasse, from which collection in about 1945;

Amelia Benskin;        

Dr. Erich Alpont;

Sold Christie’s 18 July 1972, lot 106;

Private Collection, Spain;

Sold Bonham’s 16 November 2011, lot 115;

Sold Christie's, London, 31 May 2012, lot 31;

Sold Christie's Paris, 13 September 2017, lot 268

LITERATURE :         

•Braam, Fred W. World Collectors’ Annuary, vol. XXV, 1972

•Bac, Ferdinand, Cahier de souvenirs, no. 11, manuscript, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris

•Rapazzini, Francesco. Elisabeth de Gramont Avant-gardiste, collection Vies de Femmes, Fayard, Paris, pp. 147-49, 226-27, 311, 411, 414-15, 497, 552

CC 2008