7718

Robert Wynn-Carington, Viscount Wendover 1911

Standing half-length in three-quarter profile to the right, wearing a brown hacking jacket over a blue-grey waistcoat and white stock, holding a whip and gloves in his right hand, his left to his lapel, trees in a landscape and a darkened sky beyond

Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 75 cm (35 ½ x 29 ½ in.)

Inscribed top left: P.A. László / 1911. VIII 

Laib L15377 (785)/ C 28(31)  

NPG Album 1913-15, p. 2

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 90: Wendover Sept. 4th 1911. Daws Hill / High Wycombe

Private Collection

This portrait was painted in September 1911 in the dining room at Daws Hill, the Carringtons’ family home on the Wycombe Abbey Estate in Buckinghamshire. De László had painted the sitter’s sister Myee, Viscountess Bury, in July that year [2214], which may have been a catalyst for this commission.

The artist’s wife Lucy recorded in her diary that de László went to High Wycombe for a short stay on 2 September 1911.^[1] It seems that the portrait of Viscount Wendover was executed from start to finish then, and Lucy, who was also away from London at that time, wrote that de László was back on her return, on 8 September.^[2] The month of creation inscribed by the artist in Roman numbers on the canvas is therefore difficult to explain, apart from the fact that it was early September when de László completed it, and that he may have mechanically dated it from the previous month.^[3] 

When painting at his patrons’ stately homes, de László’s surroundings usually proved a considerable source of inspiration to him – not least the art collections on display there. He believed that the frame formed an integral part of the work, and the same principle of harmony applied to the portrait and its setting. This perhaps partly explains why on his arrival in Britain in 1907, de László’s style was shaped by the grand manner tradition, and notably van Dyck’s portraiture. Here, the pose of the young Wendover is particularly reminiscent – albeit in reverse and half-length – of the figure of Lord Bernard Stuart in the famous double portrait with his brother Lord John Stuart.^[4] His attitude, right arm a-kimbo, and holding his lapel in his left hand, shares the same aplomb, elegance and confidence as Lord Bernard’s, whose aquiline profile, fair hair and complexion also have much in common with de László’s sitter.

Wendover’s mother was very pleased with the portrait. She wrote, on 22 October, that the picture was hung “over the fireplace in the little square, oak panelled room at the end of the long corridor […] & now as you walk down the corridor you see the picture, and it looks very well […]. I cannot tell you the pleasure it gives us – as for me. I feel a warm glow round my heart every time I think of it, it is a beautiful picture, and what a good, living, portrait of our boy.”^[5] Lucy de László noted at the end of her diary, in her account section, that the sitter’s father paid £420 for the picture.^[6]

While de László was at Daws Hill, he made two small oil studies of the house and garden, which remain in private collections.  Both the portrait and the oil sketches are mentioned in the Marquess of Lincolnshire’s papers held in the Bodleian Library as having been selected by the fourth of the five elder sisters of the sitter, Lady Victoria Forester, after the death of their mother, the Marchioness of Lincolnshire, in 1934. A photogravure of this portrait was made at the time, one of which is at the Palace of Westminster.

Albert Edward Samuel Charles Robert Carington, known as Robert, was born on 24 April 1895, at 50 Grovesnor Street in London. He was the sixth child and only son of Charles Carington, then Baron Carrington, and his wife the Hon. Cecilia Margaret Harbord. A close friend of Robert’s father, the Prince of Wales, was his sponsor at his christening on 5 June 1895 at Wycombe Parish Church. On 16 July that year, Charles Carington was created 1st Earl Carrington,^[7] and Robert Viscount Wendover. He retained this title even after his father was created Marquess of Lincolnshire in 1912.

Wendover attended Eton College from 1908 until 1912. Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the Royal Horse Guards and gained the rank of Lieutenant. It was as a subaltern, in the Charge of the Blues 10th Hussars and Essex Yeomanry, that he died from wounds received in action near Ypres on 13 May 1915. He died in hospital in Boulogne on 19 May, his parents at his bedside. On 27 May a Greek verse, In Memoriam, was published in The Eton College Chronicle. His parents repatriated his body for the funeral, which took place at Moulsoe, Buckinghamshire, with full military honours. He was buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Moulsoe.

PROVENANCE:

The Marquess and Marchioness of Lincolnshire;

Lady Victoria Weld-Forester, their fourth daughter;

Major Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, her elder son and godson of the sitter;

By descent to the present owner

EXHIBITED:  

•The Royal Academy, 1912, no. 713

LITERATURE:

•The Throne, vol. 7, no 83, 8 May 1912, p. 2, ill.

•The Illustrated London News, 29 May 1915, p. 683, ill.

•Williams, Oakley (ed.) Selections from the Work of P.A. de László, Hutchinson, London, 1921, pp. 153-58, ill. facing p. 152

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 149, ill. 87

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 112

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 190, ill.

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 85, ill.

•László, Lucy de, 1911 diary, privately owned         

•DLA061-0045, letter from Lady Carrington to de László, 22 October 1911

CC  2008