Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy

Princess Elisabeth Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy, (April 15, 1863 - August 28, 1923), New York City) was a Hungarian born German and Manhattan portrait painter.

Life

Elisabeth von Parlaghy was educated in Budapest and by Franz Quaglio and Wilhelm Dürr in Munich, where she adapted the style of Franz von Lenbach. A portrait of her mother made her known in 1890 in Berlin. There, in 1891, followed a public dispute of her Moltke portrait and the her protection by the German Emperor William II. Later she was honored for her portraits in the Salon de Paris 1892 to 1894. In 1896 she first visited New York City. Returned to Europe, in 1899, she married the Russian Prince Lwoff at Prague. She came back to New York in 1899/1900, and the portrait of Admiral George Dewey then became the basis of her further American success. Back, she lived at Berlin, Germany, and Nice, France, to move definitely to New York City in 1908.

Manhattan

As the portraitist of 5th Avenue, she lived in her 3rd floor suite of the new Plaza Hotel, where the Princess Lwoff had her own chapel and 14 rooms to live a very representative style, in which respect also her advertising visit of her cousin Abbott Lawrence Lowell at Harvard by train in 1911 became well known. [ [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1956/4/1956_4_48.shtml AmericanHeritage.com / VARNISH FOR THE NABOBS ] ] In 1912 her famous Plaza lion pet "Goldfleck" died, to find a place at the Hartsdale Pet cemetery. From then on she spent the summer in the Catskills. In 1913 she celebrated her 50th birthday in the Plaza by a presentation of a series of her German portraits. In 1916 she moved to Park Avenue, where she introduced herself by the presentation of the portrait of John Burroughs. To celebrate her 60th birthday in 1923, she was going to present her "Manhattan Hall of Fame" in the Carlton on Madison Avenue (New York City, NY). She died in this year 1923, and the poet Edwin Markham honored her by his funeral oration.

Her "Manhattan Hall of Fame" the Brooklyn merchant Ludwig Nissen (1855-1924) [ [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Nissen Ludwig Nissen – Wikipedia ] at de.wikipedia.org] transferred to his Ludwig-Nissen Foundation, Husum, Germany. [Klaus Lengsfeld: Sammlung Ludwig Nissen (Husum 1855 - 1924 New York); Dokumentation der Kunstsammlung Ludwig Nissens anlässlich der Ausstellung zu seinem 125. Geburtstag im Nissenhaus zu Husum, 1980, 169 S. (= Schriften des Nordfriesischen Museums Ludwig-Nissen-Haus, Nr. 16)]

Work

There are about 120 portraits of representative men and women also of Europe known. These date from 1884 to 1923.

Portrait Reference List

The list in general refers to the Hall of Fame, presented in New York City in 1923.

* August Belmont, Jr.
* John Burroughs, portrait now at Vassar College
* Andrew Carnegie
* Joseph Hodges Choate
* William Conant Church
* Chauncey M. Depew
* George Dewey
* Thomas Alva Edison
* Daniel Chester French
* Myron T. Herrick
* Friedrich Hirth
* Seth Low
* Edwin Markham
* Hudson Maxim
* Alton B. Parker
* Henry Phipps
* Horace Porter
* Daniel E. Sickles
* Charles Dwight Sigsbee
* Nikola Tesla
* Benjamin Tracy
* James Grant Wilson

Literature

* Cornelius Steckner: Die New Yorker Malerfürstin Vilma Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy, in: Bilder aus der Neuen und der Alten Welt, 1993, 34 - 41; 152 - 156.

References