(Budapest 1869–1937 London)
Portrait of Countess Therese Brockdorff, née von Loën (1846–1924), signed, dated László F. E.. / 99 XI. / Potsdam, red, brown and white chalk on cardboard, 67 x 47 cm, framed with original frame

Provenance:
Private Collection, Germany.

We are grateful to Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, The de László Archive Trust for the scholarly advice. The present lot is archived in the Catalogue Raisonné Philip de László, no. 113508.

Baroness Therese von Loën was born in Potsdam on 28 August 1846, the daughter of the Prussian infantry general Leopold Baron von Loën and his wife Gabriele von Bülow. On 16 October 1871 she married in Tegel, Berlin, Cay-Bertram Count von Brockdorff (1837-1878).

Widowed at the age of 32, Countess Brockdorff became lady-in-waiting to Auguste Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein (from where the Brockdorffs come) on the occasion of her marriage to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in 1881. On his becoming Emperor Wilhelm II in 1888, she was appointed Comptroller of the Empress’s Household. Together with the ladies-in-waiting Mathilde Countess Keller and Claire von Gersdorff, these three most senior ladies of the Household and formed, in their devotion to the Empress, a protective cordon around her. Collectively they were known as the “Allelujah Aunts” (“Halleluja Tanten”) and all three signed the artist’s sitters’ book together, probably while de László was painting his first portrait of the Empress in November 1899, at the same time the present drawing and the untraced oil portrait of Countess Brockdorff (ill. above) were made. Countess Brockdorff accompanied the Empress into exile at Doorn and stayed even after the Empress’s death in 1921. She herself died on 11 August 1924 and is buried with the other two “Allelujah Aunts” in one grave in Potsdam.