7395

Arthur Annesley, 11th Viscount Valentia 1912

Standing three-quarter length to the right, full-face, wearing the uniform of a Colonel of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, frogged jacket and red breeches with a long black coat with a red collar and holding his plumed hat in his left hand, a pair of white gloves, in his right, all against a dark background

Oil on canvas, 180.4 x 115.6 cm (71 x 45 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: P.A. de László / 1912   

Private Collection

In 1911 Viscount Valentia retired as chair of the Oxford County Council of eleven years standing. In gratitude, a subscription was established to commission his portrait in thanks for his service. Major William Melville Lee made the arrangements with the artist and wrote to him on 21 January 1912 to confirm their acceptance of an honorarium of £600.^[1] The sitter first attended the studio on 27 February, however, sittings did not take place until early July. The sitter is painted in his uniform as Colonel of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, which must have delighted the artist as it is heavily influenced by the uniform of the Hungarian Hussars.

The portrait was officially presented to Viscount Valentia by the Oxford County Council on 9 December 1912. Lady Valentia was presented with a gold card case with a head and shoulders miniature of the portrait set into it. This was painted by Frederick Cullen, who also made two full size copies from the Orme Studio in Bayswater, rented from fellow artist Edward Stoll in September 1912.^[2] One of these copies is now in the Oxford Town Hall, while the other is untraced. A third full size copy was painted by de László’s other authorized copyist, Sydney Percy Kendrick, for the Cavalry and Guards Club in London. Following the unveiling of the present portrait, photogravure souvenir copies were sold in order to raise money for the presentation fund.

A letter from Lord Valentia on 20 May 1913 reveals that the artist chose where the portrait would hang at his home, Bletchington Park: “We had hoped to have seen you here and shown you your picture in the Dining Room the place you chose for it to hang and where it has been very much admired by all who have seen it.”^[3]

Arthur Annesley was born on 23 August 1843, the son of the Honourable Arthur Annesley and Flora Mary Macdonald. He succeeded his grandfather to the title in 1863. He was also Baron Mountnorris of Mountnorris Castle, Co. Armagh, in the Peerage of Ireland, and Premier Baronet of Ireland. He served in the 10th Hussars and later commanded the Oxfordshire Yeomanry (C.S.O. and A.A.G.) in the South African War, and was mentioned in dispatches (C.B.). He was Comptroller of the Royal Household 1895-1905 and a Lord-in-Waiting to King George V from 1915 until 1924. Viscount Valentia was also involved in politics, as Chairman of Oxford County Council, J.P. Oxford, High Sheriff 1874, M.P. for Oxford from 1895 until 1917, and as High Steward of the City of Oxford in 1924. He was created Baron Annesley in 1917, Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1900, Member of the Royal Victorian Order in 1901, and Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1923.

On 30 January 1878, he married Laura Sarah, widow of Sir Algernon William Peyton and youngest daughter of Daniel Hale Webb of Wykeham Park, Oxon. They had two sons, Arthur (born 1880) and Caryl Arthur (born 1883), and six daughters, Vere (born 1879), Violet Kathleen (born 1882), Helen (born 1884), Lettice (born 1885), Hilda Cecil (born 1889), and Dorothy (born 1892). Much beloved by his family and entourage, the sitter was renowned for his enthusiasm for life and had the reputation of being very approachable. He was an avid sportsman and served as  Master of the Bicester Hunt for twelve years. Polo was another passion and he took part in the first match ever played in England (at Hounslow) between the 10th Hussars and 9th Lancers in July 1871. His granddaughter recalled that the teams were then eight-a-side and they rode on fourteen hand ponies. Lord Valentia subsequently became Chairman of Hurlingham Polo Association for many years. His elder son Arthur was killed in action in 1914, and his second son, Caryl Arthur James, succeeded as 12th Viscount on the death of his father on 23 January 1927, aged eighty-three. In 1948 Bletchington Park was sold to William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor and the collection dispersed.

PROVENANCE:

The sitter’s daughter, The Hon. Mrs Bowlby;

By descent in the family, until 2006

EXHIBITED:        

•Grafton Galleries, Twenty-Third Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, 6 June-11 July 1913, no. 87 [A label pinned to the stretcher printed and inscribed “R.P.S. 110” would suggest that the portrait was exhibited a second time at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, or that the numbers of the exhibits changed at later stage.]

LITERATURE:

•Oxford Journal Illustrated, n˚ 167, Wednesday 11 December 1912, front cover, ill. p. 16

•DLA074-0040 and DLA0074-0042, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 21 January 1912

•DLA074-0043, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 23 February 1912

•DLA009-0024, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 24 February 1912

•DLA074-0041, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 26 July 1912

•DLA162-0483, Pesti Hírlap, 28 September 1912, p. 11

•DLA009-0025, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 17 November 1912

•DLA074-0044, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 20 November 1912

•DLA074-0045, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 29 November 1912

•DLA074-0046, letter from Major William Lauriston Melville Lee to de László, 30 November 1912

•DLA162-0135, Pesti Hírlap, 9 January 1913, p. 10

•DLA087-0070, letter from Lord Valentia to de László, 20 May 1913

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