4665

Caroline Lambart, Countess of Cavan, née Caroline Inez Crawley 1912

Standing three-quarter length in semi-profile to the left, wearing an evening dress with a stole, a long pearl necklace and drop earrings, leaning on a high-backed chair, a curtain behind

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed top left: László de Lombos / 1912 / July 10   

Laib L6205(410) / C5(29):  Lady Caven [sic]

NPG 1913-15 Album, p. 21

The present painting is de László’s second attempt at portraying Lady Cavan. In his first rejected and cut-down version he painted her full face to the viewer [4040]. This three-quarter profile portrait, in which Lady Cavan looks away from the viewer, enhances the sitter’s fine bone structure, and gives emphasis to her aristocratic elegance.

Caroline Inez Crawley was born on 6 February 1870, the eldest daughter of George Baden Crawley and his wife Eliza Inez Hulbert. On 1 August 1893 she married Frederick Rudolf Lambart (1865-1946) [4037], eldest son of Frederick Edward Gould Lambart, 9th Earl of Cavan, and his wife, Mary Sneade Olive. Her husband succeeded his father on 14 July 1900. During the Boer War the Countess went out to join her husband and rode out to see some of the battlefields with him. She was very supportive, especially after the First World War, when he considered resigning from the army as new appointments were slow to come, despite his impeccable record. Lady Cavan told him to be patient, which advice would prove to be wise, considering Lord Cavan’s subsequent achievements. However, by then, Lady Cavan already suffered from ill health, and did not witness the full flowering of her husband’s career. She died childless on 15 June 1920, aged fifty, and was buried at Ayot St Lawrence. The 10th Earl of Cavan married again in 1922: his second wife was Lady Joan Mulholland, D.B.E., the widow of Capt. the Hon. A. E. S. Mulholland of the Irish Guards and daughter of the 5th Earl of Strafford.^[1] 

LITERATURE:

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 25

CC 2008