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Philip Alexius de László

Philip Alexius de László (Budapest 1869–1937 London)

Study portrait of Baron Georg Franckenstein
Signed. Dated de László 1925.
oil on board.
90.5 x 70.5 cm.
Framed. The present portrait will be included in the Catalogue Raisonné of Works by Philip de Lászlós.
Laib L11757 (111) / C30 (4)
NPG 1921-1925 Album, p. 16, where labelled: The Austrian Minister
Sitters’ Book II, f. 45: George Franckenstein / August 13th, 1925 **Georg Franckenstein was born in Dresden on 18 March 1878, the youngest son of Baron Carl von und zu Franckenstein, at that time the Austro-Hungarian Minister at the Court of the King of Saxony, and his wife Elma, née Countess Schönborn-Wiesentheid. After finishing his education at the Schottengymnasium in Vienna, he joined the Austrian diplomatic service. He served in Washington, St Petersburg and Rome and, after four years in the Foreign Ministry in Vienna (during which time he also developed a close, lifelong friendship with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal) he was sent to Tokyo in 1911 as chargé d’affaires. At the beginning of 1913 he returned to Vienna via a detour through China and India before being posted to London to serve under the ambassador Count Albert Mensdorff. It was probably at this time that he got to know de László, who was a close friend of Mensdorff’s.
During the First World War, the sitter was appointed as an Austrian representative in Brussels to the German Administration of Belgium. In 1918 he was sent to Constantinople as an observer and intermediary in the peace negotiations between Turkey and Russia. In the summer of 1920 he returned to London as Austrian Minister. He found the building on Belgrave Square, and his own personal Far Eastern art collection, just as he and Mensdorff had left them in 1914. Franckenstein immediately set about gaining British esteem for his country and negotiating foreign loans to stave off the economic catastrophe that was threatening Austria. His personal charm, sophistication and wide-ranging contacts helped him in his efforts and made the Austrian Embassy “a rallying point for all lovers of art”. Some of the most famous musicians of the time gave free concerts there, as an expression of their attachment to Austria. Franckenstein held the post of Austrian Minister in London until 1938. He then left office and immediately took up British citizenship. On 26 July 1938, he was knighted by King George VI and henceforth held the title Sir George Franckenstein. Franckenstein and his English wife Editha died in 1953 in a plane crash.

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