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Lady Evelyn Guinness and her son The Honourable Murtogh David Guinness 1917

Seated three-quarter length slightly to the right, wearing a gold chiffon evening gown with a sash round her waist, her son standing on the settee behind her with his arms over her shoulders, wearing a cream dress with pink sash and a wreath of flowers in his hair  

Oil on canvas, 133.7 x 96.6 cm (52 ⅝ x 38 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1917.VII.

Laib L8551(678) / C11(10) Mrs. Guiness [sic] and child

NPG Album 1917-21, p. 42

Sitters’ Book II, f. 10: Evelyn Guinness. June 28th 1917.

Private Collection

In 1900 the artist married Lucy Madeleine Guinness, daughter of Henry Guinness of Burton Hall, Stillorgan, co. Dublin. Her father was a member of the banking branch of the Guinness family. The artist only painted two portraits of the brewing side of the Guinness family, the present picture and one of Lady Evelyn’s husband, Walter Guinness in uniform in 1915 [3194]. Lord Iveagh, the sitter’s father-in-law, was painted by Sir Arthur Stockdale Cope [111560] and it may be that that artist’s animosity towards de László poisoned them against commissioning further portraits from him. The sitter discussed inviting Lord Iveagh to the studio to see the portrait but it is not known if this visit took place.^[1]

The portrait was painted in June and July 1917 and a preparatory oil study [113418] of identical composition to the finished picture remained in the artist’s studio until his death. The studio inventory indicates it was acquired by Lady Moyne in 1938 but it is currently untraced.

The composition is influenced by 18th century English portraits of mothers and children that depicted the Age of Enlightenment ideals of motherly affection shown in such works as Sir Joshua Reynolds’ (1723-1792) portraits of Georgiana, Countess Spencer and her daughter Georgiana (private collection) and Georgiana’s own portrait as the Duchess of Devonshire with her daughter Georgiana Cavendish (Chatsworth House). The figure of the boy with his arms round his mother’s neck occurs in Reynolds’ portrait of  Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons (National Gallery, London), influenced by Van Dyck’s Charity (National Gallery, London).

Lady Evelyn Hilda Stuart Erskine was born on 21 March 1883, daughter of Sir Shipley Gordon Stuart Erskine, 14th Earl of Buchan (1850-1934) and his wife Rosalie Louisa Sartoris (1859-1943). She grew up at Almondell in Scotland and Gogmagog near Cambridge, where her father bought a home to be near the racing at Newmarket. She learned piano as a child and later became an accomplished violin player and talented amateur dancer.^[2] 

On 24 June 1903 she married The Honourable Walter Edward Guinness (1880-1944), third son of the 1st Earl of Iveagh, He became first Baron Moyne in 1932. There were three children of the marriage: Bryan Walter, later 2nd Baron Moyne (born 1905), Murtogh David (born 1913) and Grania Meve (born  1920). They lived in Grosvenor Place in London and in the Manor House at Bury St Edmunds, her husband’s parliamentary constituency. In Ireland they lived at Knockmaroon, overlooking the River Liffey near Dublin. There she designed the gardens, adding a lily pond and pergola. A ballroom was added to the house where she had bamboo rails mounted on the walls so she and her daughter could practice ballet. She was a generous hostess and enjoyed arranging elaborate entertainments for her friends and family.

She and her husband built Bailiffscourt on land they bought near Clyming on the Sussex coast. The house reflected her interest in architecture: it was constructed from a number of medieval buildings, deconstructed and transported stone by stone and rebuilt with underground passages to connect them. The gardens were sown with wild flowers which were used for table decorations at dinner parties. The sitter’s daughter recalled that this use of wild flowers was eccentric at the time. Constance Spry (1886-1960) made the style popular in the 1940s and 50s through her work for royal occasions and her school of floristry and flower decoration.

Lady Evelyn was diagnosed with cancer, exacerbated by a bad fall on her husband’s yacht in the Caribbean while he was chairman of the West Indies Royal Commission. She had an operation in London without improvement and her husband took her to Paris to see a specialist in the hope of a cure. She died in their Paris apartment in the Rue de Poitiers, in 1939.  

An obituary described her thus: “Few will ever forget her radiant beauty and carriage and her ethereal girlish figure, which was hers to the end, reminding one of a picture of some dainty little French marquise. Her personality, her charm, and her sympathy inspired a profound respect and devotion among her many friends.” Lord Moyne was assassinated in Cairo in 1944 by emissaries of the Stern Gang from Israel.  

Murtogh David Guinness was born on 7 May 1913. He and his siblings spent their childhood between their house in Grosvenor Square and Bailiffscourt in Sussex. In the 1930s he moved to New York, where he married Anne Tarbolton on 15 November 1949. There were no children of the marriage and they spent much time living separately, Murtogh between New York and his house in Barbados. His nephew recalled him being a nocturnal person, who would come and stay in the family home and sleep all day, waking at teatime and staying up through the night.^[3] 

He returned to London for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. When woken in the morning in time to go to the seat that had been reserved for him, he said he had decided not to attend after all and turned over and went back to sleep. He was a world-renowned musical box and toy automata collector and served as President of the Musical Box Society of America. In 1974 he gave The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York a gift of thirty musical boxes and watches.

Murtogh’s wife died on 2 April 1975 and Murtogh died in New York 30 January 2002.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

LITERATURE:

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 57

•DLA014-0011, letter from Lady Evelyn Guinness, 23 July 1917

KF 2022