5960

Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquis of Lansdowne 1920

Half-length to the right, looking to the viewer, wearing the robes and Order of the Garter over blue dress uniform and holding his sword in his left hand

Oil on canvas, 80 x 54.6 cm (31 ½ x 21 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1920. July 2 [incised into paint]

Laib L9504 (140) / C14 (34A): Lord Lansdown [sic]

NPG Album 1917-1921, f. 73

Sitters’ Book II, f. 15: Lansdowne July 2d 1920

Trustees of the Bowood Collection, Bowood, Wiltshire

A letter from Harold Macmillan to his mother-in-law, Evelyn, Duchess of Devonshire dated 30 July 1920, indicates that it was the study-portrait of his young wife, Lady Dorothy [2154], which prompted Lord Lansdowne to commission the present portrait:  “I am very pleased with Lazlo’s [sic] picture. It grows on one & it is certainly a very clever & attractive bit of work. Lady Lansdowne was so pleased with it that she persuaded Lord Lansdowne to have a sketch of himself done. I have not seen it yet, but I hear that it is very good.”^[1]

When the Marquess approached de László in 1920, it was also to commission a study-portrait, but the artist found his sitter so inspiring that he took the initiative to paint a formal half-length portrait for the previously agreed fee of £210, despite Lansdowne’s offer to pay a more adequate sum for the portrait: “I confess that I had in mind something of the nature of a sketch, and not such a fine work of art as you have produced […] I had an informal conversation with you as to the fee which you were to receive, but I do not think you should be bound to anything which you said to me on that occasion.”^[2] 

A letter from de László to Lady Lansdowne^[3] reveals that only three sittings were necessary to execute this portrait. These took place on three consecutive days, in the afternoons of Wednesday 30th June, Thursday 1st July, and Friday 2nd, when the painting was signed.

As was his habit when he found a sitter particularly inspiring, de László requested additional sittings to paint a second picture of Lord Lansdowne, also wearing his Garter robes, for his own pleasure [5959].

In a letter dated 1 July 1920, the sitter wrote to his daughter, Lady Evelyn Petty-Fitzmaurice, wife of the 9th Duke of Devonshire, to express his satisfaction with the present portrait: “Laszlo has painted a little picture of me which is said to be quite successful.”^[4] A copy of the present portrait by one of the artist’s authorised copyists, Sydney Percy Kendrick, remains in the Government Art Collection and hangs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London. Two additional copies have been recorded so far: one by Edward Dyer, in a private collection, and a photographic replica by Andrew Valentine, made in 1990, which hangs in the Lansdowne Club in London.

De László painted several other members of the Lansdowne family. The sitter’s wife was painted in 1916 [5969] and their second son Major Lord Charles Mercer-Nairne's portrait, was painted posthumously by de László in 1916, fourteen months after he was killed in action near Ypres in 1914 [11578]. Their eldest son, Henry William Petty-Fitzmaurice was painted in 1934 [5972], after he had succeeded to the Earldom; his wife, the Countess of Kerry [3143], and their daughter, the Lady Katherine Fitzmaurice [3146], were also painted in 1923 and 1933 respectively.

His daughters Beatrix, Marchioness of Waterford [5414] and Evelyn, Duchess of Devonshire [4409] were painted, as was his great nephew the 7th Marquess of Waterford [5170].

Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice was born on 14 January 1845 at Lansdowne House in London, the eldest son of the 4th Marquis of Lansdowne and his second wife, Emily Jane Mercer Elphinstone de Flahault, Baroness Nairne, daughter of the Comte de Flahault and the Baroness Keith and Nairne.  Born to an illustrious family (his grandfather the 3rd Marquess had been a whig leader for 50 years, whilst his great-grandfather, Lord Shelburne, was one of George III’s prime ministers), Viscount Clanmaurice, as he was known until the death of his grandfather in 1863,^[5] was destined for a career in public affairs. He was educated at a preparatory school at Woodcote, near Reading, between 1855 and 1858.  From there he went on to Eton, where he was fag master to Arthur James Balfour [2707] and then up to Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a B.A. and an M.A..  

Shortly after graduation on 8 November 1869, at Westminster Abbey, he married Lady Maud Evelyn Hamilton, seventh and youngest daughter of the 1st Duke of Abercorn and his wife Louisa Jane, second daughter of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford. They had four children: Lady Evelyn Emily Mary (born 1870); Henry William Edmund Petty-Fitzmaurice, later 6th Marquis of Lansdowne (born 1872); Charles George Francis (born 1874) and Lady Beatrix Frances (born 1877). He was later created D.C.L. of Oxford in 1888. After his father’s sudden death in 1866, he found himself at the age of twenty-one a member of the House of Lords and one of the largest landowners in the country. He also succeeded his mother in the Barony of Nairne, but not until June 1895.

He took his seat on the Liberal benches of the House of Lords, and almost immediately became a junior whip in Gladstone’s first government in 1869, the first of a long series of prestigious appointments. He was Lord of the Treasury (Liberal) from 1868 to 1927, Under-Secretary for War from 1872 to 1874, Under-Secretary for India from April to July 1880, Governor General of Canada from 1883 to 1888, Viceroy of India from 1888 to 1894, Secretary of State for War from 1895 to 1900, Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire from 1896 to 1920, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1900-5, Minister without Portfolio 1915-16, Trustee of the National Gallery, Chairman of Council of B.R.C.S. 1915-1920, and Chancellor of the Order of St. Michael and St. George 1917-20.

For the rest of his life, as one of the most prominent Anglo-Irish landowners, he was one of the main targets of the anti-landlord movement both in England and Ireland. He was the leader of the Unionist peers from 1903 until 1916.

The Lansdownes divided their time between their various homes: Lansdowne House, in Berkeley Square, London; Bowood, near Calne in Wiltshire and Derreen, near Kenmare in county Kerry, Ireland.  The last of these was largely Lansdowne’s own creation.  In 1870 it was little more than a cottage and in the years that followed it was enlarged and the desolate domain was planted to make a lasting wild-garden under Lansdowne’s personal supervision.  The Marquess’s Irish connections became problematic, both personally and politically, and Lansdowne was devastated when his Irish home was looted and then destroyed by fire during the Troubles in 1922.  He rebuilt the house, having pursued the Irish government for compensation, and it was on his way there, at Newton Anmer House, Clonmel, co. Tipperary, that he died of heart failure on 3 June 1927. He is buried at Christ Church, Derry Hill, near Bowood.

LITERATURE:

•Letter from 5th Marquis to his daughter Evelyn, 1 July 1920, Chatsworth Archives, Chatsworth, Derbyshire

•Letter from Harold Macmillan to Evelyn Duchess of Devonshire, 30 July [1920] Chatsworth Archives, Chatsworth, Derbyshire

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 344

•Perry, Maria, The House in Berkeley Square: A History of the Lansdowne Club, 2003, ill. p. 94

•Corbeau-Parsons, Caroline, Philip de László: Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 2010, pp. 11-12, ill. p. 12

•Kerry, Simon, Lansdowne: The Last Great Whig, 2017, ill. dustjacket

Our grateful thanks to Charles Noble, L.V.O., Keeper of Collections, Chatsworth, and to Kate Fielden, Curator of the Bowood Estate for their assistance in compiling this description

CC 2008