Portrait of Leo XIII

Philip de László painted at least two portraits of Pope Leo XIII, including this version held at the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo — the Pope's summer residence in the Castelli Romani hills outside Rome. The Castel Gandolfo version may have remained within Vatican collections rather than entering public gallery holdings, making it a more private record of the papal commission. Leo XIII sat for relatively few portraits given the length of his reign, and de László's access was a significant professional achievement. The existence of multiple versions attests to the painting's importance and the demand for copies from Catholic institutional patrons.

The Castel Gandolfo portrait, like the Hungarian National Gallery's version, confronts the challenge of rendering papal white vestments luminously while keeping the aged face prominent. De László uses the white cassock as a light-reflecting field against which the pope's features are modelled with careful, understated observation.