2772

Study portrait

Arthur Lyulph Stanley, 5th Baron Stanley of Alderley, 5th Baron Sheffield and 4th Baron Eddisbury 1930

Half-length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing a tuxedo, the ribbon of the Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George around his neck, the KCMG star on the lower part of his jacket, and two service medals side by side on his jacket collar, the right one being the Queen’s South Africa Medal, won during the second Boer War.

Oil on board, 89.9 x 69.2 cm (35 ⅜ x 27 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1930. XI

NPG Album, 1929-31, p. 32

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 67: Stanley of Alderley 18th Nov 1930

Private Collection

De László was a good friend of Lord Sheffield, the father of the present sitter. The artist painted Lord Sheffield twice, [12808][2065] and the sitter’s mother Lady Sheffield on four occasions [2767][2770][3870][2768]. The present portrait exemplifies the continuity of patronage down the generations that is not uncommon in de László’s oeuvre. De László’s fee for this painting was £210, which bears testimony to the fact that he sustained a special relationship with the Stanleys. At this stage in his career, he would normally have charged 400 guineas for a study portrait in the present format.

Lucy de László mentioned this portrait in her diary entry of 20 November 1930 “Philip finished today a splendid head & shoulders of Lord Stanley – I went into the studio to greet him, & later Ly S. came – She was del. with it, & v. enthusiastic.”^[1] On 11 December 1930, Lord Stanley acknowledged he had received the portrait, adding: “Those of my family who have seen it agree that it is characteristic and pleasing and this is my opinion.”^[2] In the same letter, Lord Stanley mentioned a possible exhibition, but there is no indication that this ever took place.

Arthur Lyulph, 5th Baron Stanley of Alderley, 5th Baron Sheffield and 4th Baron Eddisbury, 11th Bt, was born on 14 September 1875, the son of Edward Lyulph Stanley [12808] and Mary Katharine Bell [3870]. Like his father, he was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he met his lifelong friend Hilaire Belloc. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1902, and in 1904, he became a London County Councillor. The following year, on 29 August 1905, he married Margaret Evelyn Evans Gordon (1875-1964), daughter of Henry Gordon, of Prestons, Ingsham, Kent. Together they had five children: Edward John (born 1907), later 6th Baron Stanley of Alderley, Lyulph Henry (born 1915), later 7th Baron, Mary Katherine Adelaide (born 1906), Pamela Margaret (born 1909) and Victoria Venetia (born 1917).

In 1906, the sitter became Liberal Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire. He fought in the Boer War and was appointed Governor of Victoria, Australia, in 1913, taking up his post in 1914. It is about this appointment that Hilaire Belloc jokingly referred to his friend in his poem Lord Lundy, in the lines “Go out and govern New South Wales.” The sitter served as Governor of Victoria for five years. In 1914, he was made KCMG. He lost the 1923 General Election as Liberal candidate for Knutsford, and from 1925 to 1928, he undertook the positions of Chairman of the Royal Colonial Institute and of the East Africa Joint Committee. He succeeded his father in 1925 and was styled Baron Stanley of Alderley, whilst his father had always been known as Baron Sheffield. Lord Stanley died of a bacterial infection on 22 August 1931.

Original frame by Emile Remy, 153 King’s Road, London S.W.

PROVENANCE:

The Hon. Lyulph Stanley, later 7th Baron Sheffield, second son of the sitter;

By descent in the family

LITERATURE:

•DLA123-0012, letter from 5th Lord Stanley to de László, 11 December 1930        

•László, Lucy de, 1930 diary, private collection, 20 November entry 

CC 2008