Ernie and Onor - portraits of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Hesse by de László, 1907

Unfinished variant of the above portrait; the line around the figure suggests that there was thought to reshape the canvas into an oval format.

The very artistic Grand Duke got up in a fancy-dress turban.

*

In 1894 Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine had been fairly railroaded into marriage with his first cousin Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by their mutual grandmother Queen Victoria. The union was a disaster almost from the start, and the couple divorced in 1901 on grounds of "invincible mutual antipathy." Four years later, Victoria Melita married another first cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich while, that same year, Ernst Ludwig married Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. Called Ernie and Onor in the family, the pair's first son, Georg Donatus, was born in 1906 and their second, Louis, two years later. The grand ducal couple endured war and political turmoil - and perhaps Ernst Ludwig's homosexual affairs - but lived very happily together until the Grand Duke's death in October of 1937. Only a month later, the dowager Grand Duchess was killed in a horrific plane crash that also claimed the lives of her eldest son, his pregnant wife Cecile - sister of the present Duke of Edinburgh - and their two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander.

Battenberg to Mountbatten - portraits by de László

Prince Louis of Battenberg, 1909.

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, GCB, GCVO, KCMG, PC (24 May 1854, Graz – 11 September 1921, London), British naval officer and German nobleman closely related to the British royal family. Born Prince Ludwig Alexander von Battenberg, the eldest son of the morganatic marriage between Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Countess Julia von Hauke. He was closely related to many of Europe's royal families, and became especially close with that of Queen Vicoria after her second eldest daughter, Alice, married his cousin Prince Louis of Hesse. At the age of fourteen he joined the Royal Navy and thus became a naturalized British subject. In the coming decades, he gladly welcomed any assignment that would help him acquire the many necessary skills of naval warfare and demonstrate to his superiors his devotion to a naval career, while eschewing any promotion or honor that might give the impression of being undeserved, the result of the influence of his royal connections. After many far-flung postings and increasingly prestigious commands, by 1904, he had risen to the rank of rear admiral.

Prince Louis, 1910.

Prince Louis, 1910.

In 1912, after a naval career lasting more than forty years, he was appointed First Sea Lord, the professional head of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. With the approach of World War I, together with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, he took steps to ready the British fleet for the coming conflict. But there had been grumblings about his German heritage for some time, and after the commencement of hostilities, with the rapid rise of anti-German sentiment among the British public, the press, and with resentment even being stirred by others in the Admiralty, Churchill asked for his resignation in October of 1914.

In the summer of 1917, in the thick of war and the height of anti-German feeling, King George V changed the name of the British royal house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. At the same time, he and all his British relatives relinquished their German titles and styles, and adopted British-sounding surnames. The King compensated his male relatives by creating them British peers. Prince Louis was made Marquess of Milford Haven, Earl of Medina, and Viscount Alderney, and he and his three younger children took on a new surname, transforming Battenberg into a more English-sounding Mountbatten.

Prince Louis, 1909.

Princess Victoria of Battenberg, 1907.

In 1884, Louis had married his first cousin once removed, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (Victoria Alberta Elisabeth Mathilde Marie; 5 April 1863 – 24 September 1950). Victoria was the eldest child of Princess Alice, herself the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Athe age of fifteen, after the death of two of her siblings, then the death of her mother, Victoria, as the eldest child, assumed the role of mother to the younger children and of companion to her father. She later wrote, "My mother's death was an irreparable loss ... My childhood ended with her death, for I became the eldest and most responsible." Much later she suffered many more family tragedies, including the murder of her two sisters, Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elisabeth, during the Russian Revolution, as well as the air crash of 1937 that devastated the Grand Ducal family of Hesse; she lost her sister-in-law, nephew, granddaughter, and two great-grandsons. Then her elder son died the following year of bone cancer. Through it all, she was the backbone of the family.

Victoria Mountbatten, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, 1923.

She and Louis had a happy marriage, though with much travel and separation because of his naval career. They had four children:

Alice (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 25 February 1885 – 5 December 1969), who, in 1903, married Prince Andrew of Greece, with whom she would have four daughters - all would go on to marry German princes - and, later, they would be the parents of the present Duke of Edinburgh. (Born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, he adopted the name Mountbatten before his marriage to the future Queen.)

Louise (Louise Alexandra Marie Irene; 13 July 1889 – 7 March 1965), who married, as his second wife, the future King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden in 1923, and became Queen of Sweden after his accession in 1950.

George, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, GCVO (George Louis Victor Henry Serge Mountbatten; 6 December 1892 – 8 April 1938), who married Countess Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby, morganatic daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich in 1916. They had two children before his early death.

Admiral of the Fleet Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten; 25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979), British Royal Navy officer and statesman, uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. During the Second World War, he was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command (1943–1946). He was the last Viceroy of India and the first Governor-General of independent India. He married heiress Edwina Ashley in 1922 and they had two daughters together.

Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, 1907.

De László at work on the portrait above, with the model and her husband.

Her husband, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, 1913.

Princess Andrew, 1907.

Princess Andrew, 1922.

Princess Andrew, 1922. It's believed that this portrait and the one above were completed on the same day.

George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, 1924.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1924.

Lord Louis, 1925.

His wife, Edwina, Lady Mountbatten, 1923. This appears to be a sketch for the following portrait.

Lady Mountbatten, 1923. Posed in her wedding gown; the event had been celebrated the year before.

Lady Mountbatten, 1924.

Princess Louise of Battenberg, 1907.

Princess Louise, 1907.

Fancy-dress brothers-in-law - two portraits by de László, 1928

Philipp, Prince and Landgrave of Hesse (6 November 1896, Schloss Rumpenheim, Offenbach - 25 October 1980, Rome.)

Umberto di Savoia, principe di Piemonte, later King Umberto II (15 September 1904, Castello di Racconigi, Racconigi - 8 March 1983, Geneva.)

Both princes were - at least technically - bisexual, though both made dynastic marriages and each produced four children. (There has been much conjecture as to just how the frankly and notoriously homosexual Umberto may have accomplished that feat.) Philipp, who had had a previous relationship with the poet Siegfried Sassoon, married Umberto's sister, the tragic Princess Mafalda, in 1925 and the couple and their children lived mainly in Italy after that; his portrait was painted in Turin. In 1930 Umberto married Princess Marie José, daughter of King Albert I of the Belgians and his wife, Queen Elisabeth, but the couple led separate lives except when a public appearance was called for, which gave Umberto ample time to indulge his penchant for handsome young army officers.

The brothers-in-law are dressed in early seventeenth century costume, apparently for a pageant commemorating the founding of the house of Savoy-Carignano (?).

I'll let Wikipedia give a fuller report on the dramatic lives of these two complicated fellows:

Prince Philipp of Hesse

King Umberto II

Widow black, widow white - two portraits of Olga, Queen of the Hellenes, by de László, Athens, 1914

Quite visible beneath the surface of the white drapery is an earlier attempt on the same canvas; an image of the Queen can be seen, upside down, turned full face.

Encore les hommes - portraits and self-portraits

Portrait of a Young Man, by Cornelis de Zeeuw, 1565

Simon Pauquet, "inspecteur des ponts et chaussées", by Henri-Pierre Danloux, circa 1785.

Courtesy Stephen Rutledge.

Portrait of Monsieur Allard, by Léon Bonnat, circa 1880s.

Selbstporträt vor der Litfaßsäule, by Georg Scholz, 1926.

John Carpenter of Mount Tavy, by John Opie, 1807.

 Self-portrait, by Bertalan Székely, 1860.

Heinrich Wilhelm August Georg Pouff, royal Dutch captain, unknown artist, circa 1840s-50s.

Unknown, Belgian, circa mid-nineteenth century. Courtesy Ralf De Jonge.

Orfeusz, by Károly Ferenczy, 1894.

Francis Wright Fabyan Jr., by Philip de László, 1931.

Portrait of a Man (Condottiere Malatesta Baglioni?), by Parmigianino, circa 1535.

Unknown, circa early twentieth century.

Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Falcó, X duque de Berwick y XVII duque de Alba, by Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor y Zaragoza, 1929.

Doppio Ritratto, by Giorgione, 1502.

Sergei Rachmaninov, by Konstantin Somov, 1925.

Self-portrait, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1894.

Ulrik Scheffer, by Alexander Roslin, 1763.

Count Platon Zubov, by Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, 1793.

Portrait of a Man (said to be a painting of Sir Henry Guildford), unknown artist, circa 1530-35.

Self-portrait, by Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, 1828.

Manuel Tolsá, by Rafael Ximeno y Planes, circa 1794-1796.

George Bustard Greaves, by George Romney, 1786.

Tyrone Power, by Alfred Cheney Johnston, 1936.

Self-portrait, by Howard Norton Cook, circa 1920s-30s.

Mikhail Benois, by Konstantin Korovin, 1926.

Ritratto d’Uomo, by Antonio Mancini, circa late-nineteenth-early-twentieth century.

 Selbstbildnis im Atelier des Künstlers mit Blick auf München, Bernhard Peter von Rausch, 1834.

Unknown, possibly a self-portrait, Austrian School, circa early to mid-eighteenth century.

Unknown, circa late-nineteenth century. Courtesy Ralf De Jonge.

Portrait de jeune homme en redingote, French School, circa 1800.

Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat, by Alexander Roslin, 1764.

Ecce Homo, by José de Ribera, circa 1620.

The courier Nikolai Nesterov, atelier of  Wilhelm Lapré, circa 1882.

Sir Thomas Wharton, by Anthony van Dyck, 1639.

Charles I while Prince of Wales, by Abraham van Blijenberch, circa 1617-20.

Self-portrait, by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, circa 1790s.

Unknown, unknown miniaturist, 1793. It is signed - with initials - but it isn't enough to identify the artist.

King Willem I of The Netherlands, by Matthijs van Bree, 1827.

Portrait of a Man and Dog, by Ignaz Marcel Gaugengigl, circa late-nineteenth century.

Self-portrait, by Giovanni Giacometti, 1889.

Gunnar Elving, unknown photographer, 1921.

Unknown, unknown artist, circa second quarter of the nineteenth century.