11642

Study portrait

Claude George Bowes Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne 1931

Half-length in three-quarter profile to the right, wearing the green velvet robes of a Knight of the Thistle

Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 76.7 cm (38 x 29 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / VII 1931   

Laib L17019 (151) / C26 (21)  

NPG Album 1931, p. 20

Sitters’ Book II, f. 45: Strathmore / 1931 July 9 [on the same page that his daughter Elizabeth, Duchess of York, signed in 1925]

Private Collection

This portrait was commissioned as a pendant to that of Lady Strathmore [11641], painted only a few days earlier. Both pictures were executed to celebrate the couple’s golden wedding anniversary, and were presented to them on this occasion on 10 August 1931. Lord Strathmore received his from his tenants and estate staff, whilst Lady Strathmore received hers from the Duchess of York, on behalf of the whole family.

The first sitting with Lord Strathmore took place on 8 July, and according to de László the portrait was off to a great start: “Afternoon had a perfect sitting with […] Lord Strathmore – a fine type of a skotch aristocrate – simple in his ways – unassuming – fine & since long had I such real pleasure – & successful sketched his Head & robes of the thistle. He himself said you could leave it as it is – I am satisfied that this two fine people splendid couple are painted by me & will be presented to their golden wedding”.^[1] 

The following day, Lord Strathmore had a second sitting, despite his opinion that the portrait was already satisfactory, and de László noted: “finished his head of two sittings, one of my best work lately.”^[2] Three days later, on 12 July, he put the final touches to the picture, working on the ‘accessories’, by which he probably meant Lord Strathmore’s insignia of the Order of the Thistle, and he reasserted his satisfaction with his work: ‘now both portraits are terminated & I feel they will give me for ever much moral joy!’^[3]

It seems his sitter too was pleased with the result, as John Robertson [4149], a friend of de László, reported to the artist a few years later, after a visit to Glamis, that the Earl was “enamoured with his portrait which you painted, also the Countess.”^[4]

Later in 1931, de László painted two portraits of their daughter the Duchess of York [9126] & [12183], as well as a study portrait of her husband, the future King George VI [9123].

Claude George Bowes Lyon was born in Lowndes Square, London, on 14 March 1855, the eldest son of Claude Bowes Lyon, 13th Earl Strathmore and Kinghorne, and his wife Frances Dora Smith. He succeeded his father as 14th Earl in 1904. He was educated at Eton and given a commission in the 2nd Life Guards, which he resigned in 1882. On 16 July 1881 he married Nina Cecilia, daughter of Reverend Charles William Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck, the grandson of the third Duke of Portland. Together they had six sons and four daughters: The Honourable Violet born in 1882, Lady Mary ‘May’ Frances (born 1883) [5182], Patrick, Lord Glamis (born 1884), the Honourable John (born 1886), the Honourable Alexander (born 1887), the Honourable Fergus (born 1889), Lady Rose Constance (born 1890) [5325], the Honourable Michael (born 1893), Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite (born 1900) and the Honourable David (born 1902) [7319]. They lost their eldest daughter Violet to diphtheria in 1893, and two of their sons, Alexander, of a brain tumour in 1911, and then Fergus, who died in battle at Loos in 1915.

He was President of the Territorial Army Association, Deputy Lieutenant for Dundee, and Justice of the Peace for Co. Hertford. In 1932 he received the Freedom of the Burgh of Arbroath and was Lord Lieutenant of Co. Angus from 1904 to 1936.  He was an honorary Colonel in the Black Watch, and a Lieutenant in the Life Guards.  He was created Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1923, Knight of the Thistle in 1928 and Knight of the Garter in 1937, and became 1st Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1937.

According to Grania Forbes,^[5] Lord Strathmore took a full part in even menial tasks on his estate. He busied himself with looking after the rhododendrons and chopping and bringing in the firewood, sometimes at night. His interest in forestry led him to take an active part in the development of the plantations on his estates, and he was one of the first to grow larch from seed, brought over by him from Norway. His father had nearly bankrupted the estate by building Episcopalian churches all over Scotland; so his was not a wealthy family, but Strathmore was renowned as a considerate and generous laird. Interested in the welfare of his tenants, he believed in and encouraged smallholdings as a form of tenancy. Although of a somewhat retiring disposition, he was a welcoming and hospitable host. The Strathmores were one of the last families in Scotland to employ a jester for family entertainments. He was a fanatical cricketer, and matches at Glamis were taken very seriously. Lord Strathmore died at Glamis on 7 November 1944 and was succeeded by his eldest son.

EXHIBITED:          

•Victoria Art Galleries, Dundee, Exhibition of recent Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., September 1932, no. 5

•M. Knoedler & Company, London, Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., 21 June - 22 July 1933, no. 16.  

•The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Annual Exhibition, 1937, no. 124

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur, 6-22 January, 2004, no. 120

LITERATURE:

•The Birmingham Gazette, 22 June 1933

•The Studio Magazine, 1933, vol. CVI, pp. 148-150, ill. p. 149

•DLA 1936 parcel, Képes Vasárnap, p. 14, ill.

•Illustrated London News, Coronation Record Number, 27 February 1937, p. 56, ill.

•Illustrated London News, 8 May 1937, p. 785, ill.

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2004, p. 184, ill.

•Vickers, Hugo Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, Hutchinson, London, 2005 (ill. pp. 96-97)

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 227-228

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 78

•DLA019-0118, letter from William Aiken to de László, 11 August 1931          

•DLA162-0405, Pesti Hírlap, 24 June 1933, p. 7

•DLA023-0103, letter from John Robertson to de László, 25 November 1935

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, 13 July entry, p. 198, pasted press cutting, Daily Sketch, London, 16 July 1931, about de László being busy with his portraits of Lord and Lady Strathmore, and with the redaction of his memoirs

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, 1 July entry, p. 186; 8 July entry, p. 193; 9 July entry, p. 194; 12 July entry, p. 197

CC & CWS 2008