(Budapest 1869–1937) After Work, signed, dated and inscribed Laszlo F. 1896, oil on canvas, 97 x 70.5 cm, framed, (Rei)

Although Philip de László is now known primarily as one of the leading international portrait painters of the early 20th Century, at the beginning of his career he attempted to establish a reputation in his native Hungary as a genre painter following the example of Mihály Munkácsy who had managed to infuse a blossoming nationalist school of Hungarian painting with the influence of French artists such as Corot and Millet. De László himself studied in Paris in 1890-1 where he came under the direct influence of the plein-air painters.

Despite initial success by the mid-1890s, as de László wrote in his memoirs published after his death, “the need of money and my ardent desire to help my people compelled me to paint various portraits for 400 or 500 Florins, a sum which meant much to me in those days!” In fact it was the commission to paint the Bulgarian royal family in 1894 which launched the young artist into circles far removed from Hungarian country life, and although he remained a fervent Hungarian all his life, he later wrote “Once I had lived outside Hungary I found it difficult to sympathise with my fellow countrymen’s narrow and oriental view of life.”

In 1895 de László painted “At Vesper Bell”, showing a young girl and an old man praying after a long day working in the fields, which was purchased by the Hungarian National Gallery the following year, but the present work, with a similar theme and entitled “After Work” by the artist, was one of the last such that he painted before turning exclusively to portraiture. The year 1896 was a busy one for the artist as portrait commissions took up more of his time. The present work was painted “for himself”, according to the artist, in August 1896 at Domony, the country house near Budapest of the Secretary to the Ministry of Justice, Dr Zsigmond László (no relation to the artist), while de László was completing commissioned portraits of his host and his son and at the same time giving them lessons in painting.

As with “At Vesper Bell”, with its high view point and sharp naturalism, “After Work” shows a strong affinity to the work Jules Bastien-Lapage, an artist who greatly influenced many Hungarian painters at the time such as Simon Hollósy and Béla Iványi Grünwald. Nevertheless the concentration of attention on the girl‘s eyes is a characteristic of de László‘s portraiture evident throughout his career. Apart from a single unfinished work painted following a stay in Brittany in 1902 (“The Widow”; private collection), de László was never to attempt this kind of subject matter again. Much later in his life, however, he did turn to landscape painting, and several of these small, quick sketches, painted for his own pleasure, refer back to his early days working in the Hungarian countryside.

LITERATURE:
Owen Rutter, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p.152
Derek Clifford, The Paintings of P. A. de Laszlo, London, 1969, ill. pl.12: Girl with a Wheelbarrow
Duff Hart-Davis, Philip de László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, ill. 17
Letter from de László to Lajos Ernst, 26 December 1897, National Széchényi Library, Budapest 

We are grateful to Christopher Wentworth-Stanley for writing the catalogue entry for this work, which will be included in the Philip de László Catalogue Raisonné published under: www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com

Christopher Wentworth-Stanley is the European Consultant and contributor to the De László Catalogue Raisonné being compiled by The Hon. Mrs de Laszlo and a team of editors.
Please see www.delaszloarchivetrust.com or contact

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