painted

The situation at Hope Vale was somewhat unusual: The two missionaries Schwarz and Poland, while getting on with each other reasonably well, were entirely different natures. Schwarz, the senior missionary, was of an independent nature and a good worker, but did not see the need for reporting to the mission authorities back home. The station was never self-sufficient and continued to be a financial burden to the church. However, his spiritual work bore fruit: He established a church and school and the small congregation continued to grow. In June 1900 the government agreed to fund a school at the mission and to pay a school teacher. The new school teacher was to turn Schwarz’s life around. A year after her arrival, Mary Allen, the daughter of the Cooktown postmaster, married Schwarz on 31 May 1901. The new couple’s plans for a honeymoon in Germany were foiled by the news that Bloomfield was to be closed down and its residents assigned to Hope Valley. One year later the Mari Yamba mission was also closed down and its residents brought to Cape Bedford. Schwarz’s first daughter Grace (later Behrendorff) was born in November 1903, and his second daughter Marie (later Bennett) three years later. These two were not allowed to speak any language other than English, just as their mother taught only in English, with the result that the mission girls were noted for their fine command of the Queen’s English. Surrounded by his Australian family, and with the question of the mission language settled by government funding requirements, Schwarz gradually distanced himself from his German background. Source: missionaries.griffith.edu.au/biography/schwarz-georg-hein...

Very inspiring!

splendida!

Actually, Countess Dénes Széchényi, (née Émilie de Riquet, comtesse de Caraman-Chimay) in a painting by Philip de László. A color version of the painting is on Wikimedia Commons:

So old and....so cold. Indeed, the face that's watching you reminds me of those Belle Époque women (as she is), so sad in every photograph, or at least posing with a proud that lends a hand to sadness. Romanticism is always a particular.

Thanks trialsanderrors for clarifying her correct name. We'll fill in the caption the next time we update the record. The painting was done in 1912 according to the catalogue raisonne.