6821

Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck, Marquess of Titchfield 1914

Standing three-quarter length to the right in a landscape, wearing a cloak over his Royal Horse Guards^[1] full-dress uniform, and holding his plumed helmet in his right arm and his sword in his left

Oil on canvas, 180.3 x 114.9 cm (71 x 45 ¼ in.)

Inscriber lower right: de László, 1914, May   

Laib L7834 (5) / C26 (4) Lord Titchfield

NPG 1915-16 Album, p. 53

Sitters’ Book I, f. 97: Titchfield July 1914.

Sitters’ Book II, f. 10: Titchfield Aug. 14th 1919.

Private Collection

The present painting was presented to Lord Titchfield, son of the 6th Duke of Portland [4442], on the occasion of his coming of age, by the Welbeck estate tenants. Commissioned in early 1914, the Duke asked for the portrait to be completed by 11 June that year, for the presentation ceremony.^[2]

A contemporary photograph of the present portrait by de László’s studio photographer Paul Laib shows the portrait in its unfinished state, with the background in the painting still only sketched in. Thus it may be assumed that the portrait was presented to the sitter incomplete and was returned to the artist’s studio after the ceremony to be finished. The fact that the sitter fought in France from 1914 to 1916 and that the artist was interned from 1917 to 1919 would explain why the portrait was not completed and hung before the very end of 1919. Indeed the artist’s correspondence describes that this portrait of the sitter, ‘with cuirass and aiguillette,’ was completed in 1919 and hung in the ‘László room.’^[3] 

In 1915, de László painted two portraits of Lord Titchfield’s fiancée, The Hon. Ivy Gordon-Lennox [6823]; one of which de László gave to the couple as their wedding present [6825]. The artist also made a vivid pencil sketch of the ceremony seen from a pew in the chapel at Welbeck Abbey [11196].

William Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck, Marquess of Titchfield, was born on 16 March 1893, the eldest son of the 6th Duke of Portland and Winifred Dallas-Yorke [4411]. Like his father, he was educated at Eton, where he acquired one of his two nicknames, “Chopper”, because he excelled in carpentry there. His second nickname was “Sonny”. He then attended Sandhurst, and served in the Royal Horse Guards. Not long after the present portrait was commissioned, he saw active service in France, during the First World War, until 1916. In 1922, he was elected Conservative M.P. for the Newark division of Nottinghamshire, and remained in this role until 1943, when he succeeded his father to the Dukedom. He also served as Junior Lord of the Treasury from 1927 until 1929, under Stanley Baldwin, as well as under Ramsay Macdonald, in 1932. He was Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire from 1939 to 1962, and Deputy Lieutenant of Caithness from 1954 until 1971. He was Joint Master of the Rufford Foxhounds from 1930, President of the Nottingham T.A. Association from 1939 and Second Chancellor of the University of Nottingham between 1954 and 1971. He commanded the Notts Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers) from 1933 until 1936. A Knight of the Order of St John, he was created a Knight of the Garter in 1948.

On 12 August 1915, he married the Hon. Ivy Gordon-Lennox, Maid of Honour to Queen Alexandra from 1912 to 1915, and only child of Lord Algernon Charles Gordon-Lennox. They had two daughters, Alexandra Margaret Anne and Victoria Margaret, born 1916 and 1918 respectively. The sitter died on 21 March 1977. Although he was succeeded in the Dukedom by his third cousin, Ferdinand Cavendish-Bentinck, the 7th Duke of Portland made arrangements to separate the title from the land and the Portland estates devolved to his surviving daughter, Lady Anne Bentinck.

LITERATURE:          

•Goulding, Richard W., The Catalogue of Pictures. The Duke of Portland, Prepared by C. K. Adams, Cambridge University Press, 1936 (Private printing of 150 copies), no.  1

•Portland, William Cavendish-Bentinck (6th Duke), Men, Women and Things, Memories of the Duke of Portland, K.G., G.C.V.O., London, 1937, p. 221 and ill. between pp. 224-5

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, 1939, p. 302

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

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 66

•DLA118-0238, telegram from The Duke of Portland to de László, 12 March 1914

•DLA118-0228, letter from The Duke of Portland to de László, 3 December 1919

•DLA118-0032, letter from The Duke of Portland to de László, 4 January 1920

•DLA118-0236, letter form Richard Goulding to de László, 2 January 1920

•László, Lucy de, 1914 diary, pp. 94 & 96

CC 2008