7517

Portrait drawing 

Doctor Gardiner William Trouton 1915

Half-length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing service dress

Charcoal on paper, 50.8 x 38.1 cm (29 x 21 in.)

Inscribed lower right: P A de László / 1915. Sept 15.  

Laib L7853(58) / C26(11)  Dr. Trouton

NPG 1915-16 Album, p. 96

Sitters’  Book I, f. 103: Desmond Gardiner Trouton May 16th 1915

Private Collection

This portrait drawing is of a similar type to that of the sitter’s nephew Frederick Thomas Trouton [7519]. These were achieved very quickly in one sitting, well suited to sitters about to depart for war. De László also painted study portraits of two more of Trouton’s nephews in 1915, Maurice [7521] and Desmond [11593], both in uniform.

Gardiner William Trouton was born in Dublin in 1858, son of Thomas Trouton (1815-1882) and his wife Mabel Maria Burke (born 1822). The sitter and his brother Professor Frederick Trouton [5468] were 3rd cousins once removed of the artist’s wife Lucy Guinness; her great great grandfather Samuel Guinness, the goldbeater, was brother to their great grandfather, Arthur Guinness, the founder of the brewery. He graduated from medical school at Trinity College, Dublin and in 1890, married Rebecca Hogg (1865-1947) of Craigmore, co. Wicklow. There were five children of the marriage: Ellen (born 1892), Violet (born 1893), Vera (born 1894), Helen (born 1898) and Hubert (born 1904).

The Troutons moved to England just after their marriage and the sitter had a medical practice in Much Birch, Herefordshire before moving his practice to Rotherfield, Sussex, where he worked until his retirement in 1925. Trouton was appointed in 1899 as Surgeon-Lieutenant to the West Kent (Queen’s Own) Yeoman Cavalry and served with them throughout the First World War. He took part in the Gallipoli Campaign in Autumn 1915 and the First Battle of Gaza in March 1917.

Trouton loved Ireland and regularly travelled there to see his sisters. He died 16 December 1943, at home in Rotherfield, Sussex.

KF 2018