Comtesse Colloredo 1923

Full-length portrait of girl (aged 10) in open landscape. The sitter is portrayed in a reclining, semi-erect position, legs slightly drawn up, right arm supported on the ground and holding a white and black terrier dog. She wears in a blue velvet dress with white lace collar and sleeve edging.

JQAW# P_1923_010
Oil on canvas 88 x 88 cm
signed: John Quincy Ɑdams 1923
Private collection USA.

Maria Eleonore Franziska "Pepinella" Colloredo-Mansfeld (13.8.1913 Paris - 4.9.1955 Vienna). Daughter of Count Ferdinand Colloredo-Mansfeld and his U.S.-born wife Eleonore C-M, née Iselin (see her masterful Portrait by Philip de László). Youth in France and at the parental castle Sierndorf and in Vienna. 1938 marriage to Friedrich (Frederick) Wilhelm (William) von Meister (1903-1978) in New York (Long Island), then residence in the USA (Peapack and Bernardsville, New Jersey). Three children. Stricken by serious illness, she returned to her parents' chateau in 1955, where she died young. Buried in the von Meister family crypt Frankfurt am Main. Friedrich Wilhelm von Meister married again, to the sitter's cousin Agnes "Nesi" von Colloredo-Mansfeld (1924-1970).

The portrait of Comtesse Pepinella Colloredo-Mansfeld (the Italian call name was given to her by her father after a stay in Italy) is undoubtedly one of Adams' most charming child portraits. It caused a sensation at the exhibition at the Künstlerhaus in Vienna in 1923 and was widely praised by the press, published several times (B&W), and called "blue girl" in reference to the famous Gainsborough Portrait „the blue boy“ (Huntington Library, San Marino, USA). A previously unknown Adams child portrait "two sisters" also dated 1923, which recently appeared in the art trade in the USA, shows a number of parallels to the Colloredo-Mansfeld portrait (open landscape as background, blue robe with white lace collar, brushwork, see cross-references). An identification of the two portrayed persons was not possible so far, but a connection to the closer family of the Comtesse Colloredo-Mansfeld can likely be excluded. In 1926 Adams painted a boy portrait of Raoul Mario Weigner (see cross-references) that follows closely the Pepinella Colloredo portrait but is dominanted by brown color tones: boy meets girl.

Cross-references

Photoportrait Comtesse Colloredo-Mansfeld by Atelier d'Ora Vienna

Gravesite Family Master Frankfurt a.M.

Two sisters 1923

Raoul Mario Weigner 1926 (boy meets girl)

Exhibited

1923 Künstlerhaus Wien (EL 70 1923/24 #222, there incorrectly referred to as „Comtesse Koloredo“)

Literature

APH, Werksverzeichnis JQA 1995, S. 180, Kat.#147, Abb.#100 (S/W).

Provenance

Sitter.
Her family descendants.
Private collection USA.