3712

UNTRACED

Prince Boris of Bulgaria, Duke of Saxony 1894

Seated three-quarter length, head turned to the left in three-quarter profile, wearing a white dress with blue bows at the shoulders and blue sash about the waist, holding a garland of roses and carnations

Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 51 cm (23 ¾ x 20 in.)

Inscribed lower left: László F / 1894. / XI / Euxinográde 

From the end of September to the end of December 1894 de László was in Bulgaria, first at the Winter Palace at Euxinograd, and afterwards at the Royal Palace at Sofia, to paint portraits of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria [3937] and his wife, Princess Marie-Louise [3715]. Whilst completing the original commissions, the artist was asked to paint the present portrait of the heir apparent, Prince Boris, then ten months old, as a present from Prince Ferdinand to his mother, Princess Clementine,^[1] most probably to mark the occasion of Boris’s first birthday.^[2] 

When finished the picture was despatched to Princess Clementine at Philippopolis, where the sitter’s birthday was to be celebrated. In his memoirs, de László wrote of Prince Boris that he was “very like his mother, and had an unpleasant domineering English nurse,”^[3] also confessing that painting him was “a difficult and exacting task.”^[4] It is very likely that de László used a photograph of Prince Boris as an aid to complete his portrait. He usually rejected such practice, but a photograph of the child in one of the artist’s albums [see above, presumably with his nurse] in a very similar pose would suggest to he had to resort to this. Prince Ferdinand is known to have had a great love for flowers, and this is reflected in his son holding such a splendid garland in his portrait.

De László painted a second portrait of Prince Boris, looking full face to the viewer and holding a spray of sunflowers [3934], which was probably a first version, as the artist explained that it was Prince Ferdinand’s “own idea that I should paint a wreath of roses round the portrait, as a symbol of life and beauty.”^[5] The portrait was completed in Sofia, the artist adding Prince Boris’s cipher in Cyrillic script, copying it from a gold cup given to the baby by his maternal grandfather, the Duke of Parma. The cipher is no longer distinguishable on the painting, perhaps having since been removed during restoration, or overpainted. It is possible, however, to see it in a photograph taken by Paul Laib^[6] of a reproduction of the portrait that the artist had with him in London in 1933; the photograph shows that the sitter signed and dated the reproduction on 13 September that year.^[7] 

In 1934 the artist recorded in his diary the military coup d’état in Sofia. “[W]hen meeting the king Boris last year in London I was much impressed by his intellect – & so well informed. It brings me back to the days of 1894 when…painting his portrait then about 11 month[s] old – His pompous English nurse holding the child in her map [sic, i.e. ‘lap’] – I suddenly took the lovely little diamant^[8] crown from the Queens man[n]equin – and asked the nurse to keep the child quiet – as I wished to see the effect – The crown of the Queen – on Boris – which just fitted to the little head – but the child moved and the Crown rolled down from his head to the foot of the nurse – the centre a little damaged. The nurse rather pleased – & at luncheon when telling to King Ferdinand the unfortunate episode – He solem[n]ly answered – I do not like it – when crowns are rolling down from the head – I do hope it means not – a bad – omen – as it happened to Ferdinand.”^[9]

Prince Boris, Duke of Saxony, was born on 30 January 1894, the eldest son of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, later King Ferdinand, and his wife, Princess Marie-Louise de Bourbon-Parma. He was first educated at the ‘Palace Secondary School’, which Ferdinand had created exclusively for his sons in 1908. He later enrolled at the Military School in Sofia and subsequently took part in the Balkan Wars, and in the First World War, during which he served on the Macedonian front as liaison officer to the General Staff of the Bulgarian army, and later to Field Marshal Mackensen and the Bulgarian Third Army, in operations against Roumania. He was promoted to Colonel in 1916, and to Major General in 1918. Following his father’s forced abdication on 3 October 1918, he came to the throne as King Boris III. In October 1930, he married Princess Giovanna (Ioanna) of Savoy (1907-2000), the third daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy. The couple had two children, Princess Marie Louise (born 1933) and Prince Simeon, later King Simeon II (born 1937).

Boris came to power at a time of political, economic and spiritual crisis. In 1925, there were two attempts on his life by leftist extremists, the second of which caused the military in power to retaliate, killing several thousands communists and agrarians.  Even King Boris’s most violent opponents, however, could not deny his political skill and ruler’s intuition. He led a modest way of life, in line with popular expectations, and would often shake hands with people in crowds, travel unguarded, and even drive a locomotive, his greatest hobby. In 1934, the Zveno military organisation staged a coup, thereby establishing a dictatorship in which King Boris stayed in place, but lost all executive power. In 1935, he succeeded in a counter-coup, but political parties were not reinstated, and the Tsar had overall control over Bulgarian politics.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, King Boris endeavoured to maintain his country’s neutrality, but to prevent an imminent invasion he was eventually forced into an alliance with Nazi Germany in the spring of 1941 so as to recover Macedonia and Yugoslavia. He refused, nevertheless, to send Bulgarian troops into action to aid Germany on the Eastern Front and resisted Hitler’s personal demand that all Bulgarian Jews be deported to the death camps.^[10]

King Boris died suddenly on 28 August 1943.^[11] In 1946 the Queen and her children were ordered to leave Bulgaria, departing for Egypt and later settling in Spain.^[12] 

PROVENANCE:         

Princess Clementine d’Orléans, grandmother of the sitter;

Palais Coburg, Vienna;

Sold at Christie’s, London, 6 July 1962;

Erna L. and Suzette Derzavis, 1967;

Sold at Sloans and Kenyon auctioneers, 5 February 2006, lot 1477;

Sold at auction at Christie´s King Street, 7 June 2007, lot 67

EXHIBITED:

•Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society, Spring Exhibition, 1895, no. 199

•Kunstverein, Munich, 1896

•Kunstsalon Schneider, Frankfurt, winter 1896-1897

LITERATURE:         

•Vasárnapi Újság, volume 43, issue 6, Budapest, 9 February 1896, p. 1 (ill.)

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a painter, London, 1939, pp. 131-144

•Új Idők, 14 July 1895, p. 25, ill.

•DLA 1896 parcel, Schubin, Ossip. “Maximum. Roman aus Monte Carlo

 (Fortsetzung)” (Vol.75)

•NSzL150-0009, letter from de László to Elek Lippich, 8 November 1894

•DLA162-0154, Pesti Hírlap, 10 January 1895, p. 5

•DLA162-0086, Pesti Hírlap, 6 April 1895, p. 5

•DLA162-0276, Pesti Hírlap, 17 April 1895, p. 4

•NSzL150-0037, letter from de László to Elek Lippich, 22 October 1896, Mainz

•László, Philip de, 1934 diary, private collection

SdeL 2008