Lucy Guinness

Lucy Madeleine de László de Lombos (; 22 December 1870 – 27 December 1950) was an Anglo-Irish socialite, amateur musician, and diarist. A member of the prominent Guinness family, she was the granddaughter of Robert Rundell Guinness, who founded the Guinness Mahon bank. She became part of the Hungarian nobility in 1912, when her husband, the painter Philip de László, was ennobled by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Guinness, who met de László in 1892 in Munich while studying music, was the subject of a series of his portraits.

Early life and family Guinness was born at Burton Hall, her family's country house in Stillorgan, County Dublin. Her father, Henry Guinness, Esq., was a justice of the peace who served as the Dublin manager of the Guinness Mahon bank, and her mother was Emelina Brown Guinness, daughter of James Brown, Esq. of Edinburgh.

Adult life

In the early 1890s, Guinness and her sister, Eustace, studied music in Munich. In 1892, while in Munich, she met the Anglo-Hungarian painter Philip László while he was studying at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. The couple had six children.

After they wed, the couple lived in Budapest and Vienna before settling in London in 1907. Guinness and her husband became part of the Hungarian nobility when László was ennobled by Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1912, taking the surname "de László de Lombos".

Guinness' diaries were published in London in 2019 under the title The Diaries of Lucy de László, Volume I: 1890–1913.