2212

Walter Egerton George Lucian Keppel, Viscount Bury 1915

Half-length, slightly to the right and full face, wearing a great coat over his service dress

Oil on canvas, 81 x 57 cm (32 x 22 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: P A de László 1915 X 

Laib L7847(56) / C4(30A)  

NPG 1915-16 Album, p. 76

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 6: Bury 30. OC. 15.

Private Collection

The Keppels were a family of ancient Dutch nobility who came to England with William of Orange in 1688, in the person of the 1st Earl of Albemarle. His son married the daughter of the 1st Duke of Richmond, the illegitimate son of King Charless II by Louise de Kérouaille. Three of their sons were famous for their capture of Haleana in the Seven Years War. The family were patrons of Sir Godfrey Kneller and especially Sir Joshua Reynolds. The present portrait depicts Viscount Bury in uniform, a veteran of fifteen years service. De László was a favourite painter for officers departing for the front due to his speed of execution. A portrait of this type could be completed in one or two sittings of two to three hours on the same day with an interval for lunch.  

De László painted a three-quarter length portrait of the sitter’s mother in 1909 [2436] and a head study of his father, the 8th Earl of Albemarle, in service dress in 1916 [2573]. The sitter’s first wife, Lady Judith Wynn-Carrington, was painted in 1911 [2214], and his daughter-in-law, Lady Mairi Vane-Tempest-Stewart, as a child in 1923 [6158].

Walter Egerton George Lucian Keppel was born 28 February 1882, the eldest son of Arnold Keppel, 8th Earl of Albemarle, and his wife Lady Gertrude Egerton. He was educated at Eton between 1895 and 1899 and on leaving joined the Prince of Wales's Own Norfolk Artillery as a lieutenant. In 1901 he transferred as a second lieutenant to the Scots Guards. He was appointed aide-de-camp to Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada in 1904 and in May 1907 extra aide-de-camp to Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, Lieutenant Governor of Orange River Colony, now part of South Africa.

Viscount Bury married Lady Judith Sydney Myee Wynn-Carrington, daughter of the 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, on 9 June 1909, at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. They had five children: Cecilia (born 1910), Derek  (born 1911), Walter (born 1914), Cynthia (born 1918) and Richard (born 1924). After his wife’s early death in 1928 he married Diana Cicely, daughter of Major John A. Grove on 24 February 1931. Their daughter Anne-Louise was born in 1932.  

During the First World War he was a major in the Special Reserve Scots Guards and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917. After the war he commanded the Prince of Wales Own Civil Service Rifles and the Norfolk Yeomanry, 108th Brigade, until 1926.  

Viscount Bury succeeded his father as 9th Earl of Albemarle in 1942 and inherited Quidenham Hall in Norfolk. He was Vice Lord Lieutenant for Norfolk between 1910 and 1944.  King George VI appointed him Commander of the Order of St John in 1952.

The sitter died 14 July 1979.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

KF 2018