13696

UNTRACED

Fülöp Grünbaum 1889

Half-length, slightly to the right, looking to the viewer, wearing a dark double-breasted jacket over a white wing-collared shirt and dark bow-tie

Oil [support unknown], 91 x 71 cm (36 x 28 in.)

Inscribed lower right: Laub 889^[1]   

The sitter was the father of Doctor Pál Grünbaum [11463], a lawyer and landowner and a friend and early patron of de László. The Grünbaums lived in Ó-Becse,^[2] where the artist spent three consecutive summers between 1889 and 1891. These visits were a formative experience, which he recalled with pleasure throughout his life.^[3] Fülöp Grünbaum was painted by de László during his first visit, in the summer of 1889,^[4] during which he also painted the sitter’s eldest son, Sándor Grünbaum [13692], and Sándor’s wife Laura [11930]. The sitter’s wife, Mrs. Fülöp Grünbaum [13694] was painted by de László in 1889 or 1891. These paintings are among de László’s earliest portraits.

József Fárbás, a local journalist,^[5] left a vivid account of Fülöp Grünbaum’s personality and career.^[6] Born in 1818, he was an affluent merchant, who by the mid-nineteenth century had become the most prominent Jewish citizen of Ó-Becse. A devout and influential member of the local Israelite community, he was instrumental in establishing a synagogue and a Jewish school there. In 1869-70 he was treasurer of the local social club. During the 1880s he was a member of the town council of Ó-Becse and its representative in the county assembly. He was well liked and had the reputation of being a kind and modest man who was always ready to help people in need without attracting publicity. It was a local custom to give people nicknames, and Grünbaum’s was the "Meszes Zsidó" (Lime Jew) as he owned a lime-kiln.

He married Rozália Kriszháber (1833-1917) [13694] in 1853. There were seven children of the marriage, including Sándor and Pál who later Hungarianised their names to Galambos. Fülöp Grünbaum died in Ó-Becse on 15 December 1889, only a few months after being painted by de László.

PROVENANCE:

•Pál Galambos, son of the sitter^[7]

LITERATURE:        

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, n° 106, Ph A. von László, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld und Leipzig, 1913, p. 4

•Fárbás, József, Régi arcok, Száz arckép a Régi Becse közéletéből (Old Faces, One Hundred Portraits from the Public Life of Old Becse), Ó-Becse, 1933, p. 32

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 40 & 48

BS & Pd’O 2014