Philip Alexius de László (1869–1937) was one of the most important portraitists of the early 20th century. Born in Hungary, he was trained in Munich and Paris and was soon receiving commissions from noble and royal families throughout Europe. Having married Lucy Guinness in 1900, in 1907 he moved from Vienna to England, where he had enormous success.
 
Far less known are the wonderful portraits de László painted in the Netherlands over more than thirty years. By 1900 de László was renowned in the highest circles and his reputation inevitably reached the land of Rembrandt. His first commission in the Netherlands, in 1901, was to portray Adèle van Loon, née Tachard; nine years later, her husband Louis van Loon also sat to him. De László became very popular with Holland’s cosmopolitan aristocratic and entrepreneurial families. Over the years, members of the Loudon and Deterding families (both founding fathers of Royal Dutch Shell), Jurgens (Unilever), Cremer (Dutch Tobacco Trading Company), and Count Schimmelpenninck all sat to him. The portraits have remained in the families’ private collections, and are here published for the first time.
 
This book accompanies an exhibition of de László’s Dutch portraits in the Van Loon house in the heart of Amsterdam, built in 1672, which was opened as a museum in 1973. It is a complete catalogue of de László's Dutch oeuvre as it is known today.