4117

Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught and Strathearn 1937

Half-length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing the robes and Order of a Knight of the Garter, and holding his ceremonial sword in his left hand

Oil on canvas, 99.7 x 75 cm (39 ¼ x 29 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1937   

Laib L10973K (289) / C6 (4)  

NPG Album 1936-37, p. 22 (Royal Society of Arts)

Sitters’ Book II, f. 88: Arthur- Bagshot- 1937 -

The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, John Adam Street, London

A copy of this portrait by Louis Ginnett, commissioned anonymously in 1939, hangs at the Royal Academy of Music.

The artist recorded in his diary in May 1935 a luncheon he and his wife Lucy attended at the London home of the Countess of Antrim, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria and Queen Alexandra, where he met the Duke of Connaught. “[H]ow delightfully human The Duke is manners – which disappears he is nearing 80 – still upright – & full of interest …I loved to be in the presence of this real great seigneur – a spirit which disappears now – how different the Royal sons are now! – I do hope to paint a study of this living torch – of bygone days – who still carries flames – of a passed history – when there was more self respect – & principals [sic].”^[1]

In May 1936 de László gave an influential paper at the Royal Society of Arts entitled The Art of our Day, in which the artist expressed his ideas about contemporary art. He was awarded a silver medal and the paper was so well received that it was later reprinted in Apollo. Shortly after this he decided to paint this portrait of the Duke of Connaught, President of the Society from 1911 until 1942, with the purpose of presenting it to the Society.

Sittings were due to take place in October 1936 but de László suffered his first serious heart attack in August and the sittings were postponed to the following summer. By then the Duke of Connaught himself was not well enough to sit to de László, and the artist could not start this portrait until October 1937. Although the Duke of Connaught originally offered to drive to de László’s studio, the artist eventually went to the Duke’s home Bagshot Park.^[2] The picture was completed at the end of October 1937 and a letter from de László, dated the 28th shows how much he enjoyed painting his sitter: “The Duke is really rather frail; he is eighty-five and […] has not been painted for thirty years,^[3] and I am glad to have had the opportunity of painting this grand seigneur. A spirit from the great Victorian time will pass away with him. It was so interesting when I was at his home in the country, where on account of his health I had to go to paint the portrait, to see there a portrait of him as a baby, sitting in the lap of his Mother, Queen Victoria, with his Father, Prince Albert, standing beside her, and in front of them the Duke of Wellington is kneeling and presenting the baby Duke, who was his god-son, with a golden casket. The portrait is by Winterhalter, and the Duke of Connaught is still with us.”^[4]

De László died just a month later, on 22 November 1937 and the Duke of Connaught survived him by more than four years. The portrait was unveiled at the Society by the Duke of Gloucester, K.G., with much ceremony before a large gathering of dignitaries. The press wrote that the present portrait was the artist completed. De László was working on quite a number of other portraits at the time, however, the Duke’s signature is the last in the artist’s sitters’ book. The picture was considered a great success by the Duke and his family – so much so that Queen Mary and then the King requested photographic copies of the portrait.

Born at Buckingham Palace on 1 May 1850, Prince Arthur was the third son and seventh child of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. He was Queen Victoria’s favourite son, the Duke of Wellington’s godson, brother of Edward VII, uncle of George V and great-uncle of Edward VIII and George VI. Destined from an early age to a career in the army, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1867, and the following year he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. He first served in Canada with the Rifle Brigade from 1869 until 1870. On 24 May 1874, he was created Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex. Two years later, he was promoted Lieutenant Colonel and was appointed Commander of the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. In 1880, he commanded the Infantry Brigade at Aldershot as a Major-General, which led him to command the Brigade of Guards during the Egyptian campaign, in the second line after Wolseley. This resulted in the victory of Tell al-Kebir. The Duke was subsequently appointed Governor of Cairo, but from 1883 until 1890 he served in India, and became Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army. During his time in India, he played an important diplomatic role and he would soon exert his talents worldwide.

Highly sociable, an accurate observer and inveterate correspondent and diarist, the Duke of Connaught mixed with a unique spectrum of people ranging from President Taft to the Emperor of Japan, Lord Wolseley to Arabi Pasha, Gladys Deacon to Ruth Draper, Rudyard Kipling to Lord Esher, Gladstone to John Brown. In terms of society, he recorded the melting of the Victorian into the Edwardian at home, the ‘dollar’ grandeur of the Vanderbilts in New York, the Vice-Regal pomp of the Curzons in India, the simplicity and spontaneity of the original African safaris, the sociability of the Orient Express and the Riviera renaissance of the 1920s.

His career extended over a wide field both geographically and functionally. Concerned with the reorganisation of the Indian armies in the face of the Russian threat to Afghanistan, he was also at the centre of the Army during the Esher reforms. As the promoter of well-informed army councils, he was set aside from power, and sent to Malta as High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean, which led to his resignation in 1909. Edward VII appointed him as Governor-General of Canada, a role he undertook from 1911 until 1916, a period of unprecedented development of that country. This was his last official appointment, although in 1921 he inaugurated the Indian constitutional reforms.

On 13 March 1879, Prince Arthur married Princess Louise Margaret, daughter of Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia (1828–1885) and  Princess Maria Anna of Anhalt (1837–1906). Together they had two daughters, Margaret (born 1882), who married the Crown Prince of Sweden; Patricia (born 1886); and a son, Arthur, Earl of Macduff (born 1883). Only his youngest daughter survived him. Apart from the Royal Society of Arts, the Duke of Connaught also presided over the United Lodge of Freemasons, and the Boy Scout’s Association. He died aged ninety-one on 16 January 1942 at Bagshot Park.

EXHIBITED:

•Wildenstein’s, Exhibition of Paintings by Philip A. de László, M.V.O. November 24-22 December 1937, no. 17

•BADA Art & Antiques Fair, London, Philip de László: 150th Anniversary Exhibition, 2019, no. 14

LITERATURE:        

•László, Philip de, March-July 1936 diary, private collection, 8 July entry, p. 150

•The Illustrated London News, 27 November 1937, p. 951, ill.

•Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 86, No. 4435 (19 November 1937), p. 19; ill. p. 20

•The New York Times, 5 December 1937, Rotogravure Section, ill.

•R.S.A. Journals: vol. 84, pp. 996-1911, vol. 86, p. 65, and pp. 339, 346-8, vol. 90, pp. 113-16 ill. p. 115;

•The Studio, vol. 115, no. 538, January 1938, front cover and p. 2, ill.

•Holme, C.G. ed., Painting a Portrait by de László, How To Do It Series no. 6, he Studio, 1934, p. 50 and ill. in colour, p. 51, pl. XX

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, pp. 377-78

•Frankland, Dr. Noble, Witness of a Century: The Life and Times of Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught, London, 1993, p. 382, ill. dustjacket

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London 2004, p. 39, ill. p. 38, fig. 29

•Correspondence between de László and the Royal Society of Arts, formerly in the possession of the R.S.A., now in the collection of Mr. Matthew Davies, U.S.A.

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 281, ill. 145

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 179

•Field, Katherine, Philip Alexius de László; 150th Anniversary Exhibition, de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 55, ill. pp. 23, 54

•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. 47

•DLA0118- folder

•DLA025-0123, letter from de László to Edward Tuck, 28 October 1937

•DLA162-0240, Pesti Hírlap, 14 November 1937, p. 16

•DLA162-0479, “László Fülöpöt az angol sajtó az arcképfestészet legnagyobb hősei közé sorozza” [Philip de László is Ranked Among the Greatest Heros of Portrait Painting by the English Press], Pesti Hírlap, 28 November 1937, p. 14

•DLA162-0292, Pesti Hírlap, 18 February 1938, p. 4

CC 2008