23

Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980) PORTRAIT OF BERTHOLD HEMPEL (SON OF THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR) 1939

Currency:EUR Category:Art / General - Paintings Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,000.00 - 3,000.00 EUR
Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980) PORTRAIT OF BERTHOLD HEMPEL (SON OF THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR) 1939

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2011 May 30 @ 18:00 (UTC+1)
Location:Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Dublin, ., Ireland
Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980)
PORTRAIT OF BERTHOLD HEMPEL (SON OF THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR) 1939
pastel
inscribed by the sitter's father [Dr. Edward Hempel (1887-1972)] with artist and sitter's names and dated on reverse; also with location [the Ambassador's home address, "Gortleitragh", Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin] on reverse
46 by 30cm., 18 by 12in.
Provenance:Collection of the Hempel family; Their estate sale, Munich, Germany, 1994; where purchased by the present owner


Berthold Hempel, younger brother to Liv Hempel, whose portrait by Hennessy was sold through Whyte’s on 14 March of this year [€4,800], was one of five children born to Dr Hempel and his wife, Eva, two of whom were born in Dublin during his term as “Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the German Reich” from 1937 to 1945.
Drawn in 1939 this endearing portrait shows the two year old in traditional German dress clutching an apple and placed against a backdrop of pastel floral wallpaper. Dr Hempel commissioned portraits of each of his family members by the then emerging Cork artist Patrick Hennessy. The portraits were made at Dr Hempel’s official residence on Sloperton Road, Dún Laoghaire and it was to this address that then Taoiseach Éamon de Valera famously called to express the Free State’s condolences following Hitler’s death in 1945. After the War, Dr Hempel resigned his diplomatic post and the family was granted asylum in Ireland. Berthold sadly died in Dublin in 1948 from a brain tumour and the family returned to German in 1950 where Dr Hempel helped set up a diplomatic service for the new Federal Republic.