Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980) – Portrait of Eva Hempel
This portrait at Whyte’s auction of important Irish art in Dublin on May 25 stirs up memories of another deeply troubled time in world affairs. The subject of Patrick Hennessy’s portrait, Eva Hempel, was wife of Hitler’s ambassador in Dublin Dr. Eduard Hempel. Though not at the time a member of the Nazi party the career diplomat was appointed as ‘Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the German Reich’ in Dublin by Adolf Hitler in 1937. He was pressured to join the Nazi Party in 1938 and continued to represent the Third Reich in Ireland until 1945. 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. The house was destroyed in an arson attack in the early 1950’s and the remains demolished in 1955.
After the War, Dr Hempel resigned his diplomatic post and the family was granted asylum in Ireland. He was not allowed to work and Eva supported the family by running a confectionary and bakery. Berthold, Dr Hempel’s son, died in Dublin in 1948 from a brain tumour and the family returned to Germany in 1950 where Hempel helped set up a diplomatic service for the new Federal Republic. The portrait remained in the collection of the Hempel family. It was last sold at the estate sale of their collection in Munich in 1994 and has been in a private collection. Lot 38 is estimated at €4,000-6,000. Whyte’s sale will offer 132 lots of Irish art with an overall value of €1.4 million.
