4037

Lieutenant Colonel Frederic Rudolph Lambart, 10th Earl of Cavan 1912

Standing three-quarter length facing the viewer and looking to the right, wearing a Staff Officer’s blue frock coat seen under his open Atholl grey great-coat, holding his Grenadier’s forage cap in his right hand, his sword in his left

Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 106.7 cm (60 x 42 in.)

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

NPG Album 1913-15, p. 56

Sitters’ Book I, f. 21: Cavan. March 1912.

Private Collection

This portrait certainly played a part in de László’s being awarded the Grand Cross of the Crown of Italy, eleven years after it was painted. Owen Rutter, the artist’s biographer, related the events: “In November de László returned to Rome with his wife for the opening of the International Art Exhibition, where he showed Signor Mussolini’s portrait, besides those of Count Tittoni, Lady Londonderry and Lord Cavan. King Victor Emmanuel and Signor Mussolini [6383] both came to the private view, and His Majesty was particularly interested in the portrait of Lord Cavan, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in Italy during the war.”^[1] The following day, Mussolini received the artist in the Palazzo Chigi, and handed him the insignia of the Grand Cross of the Crown of Italy, to de László’s greatest surprise: ‘When I sat for you in April’, he said, ‘you told me I was very mobile. Now I will give you something immobile. I am glad to be able to present this memento of Italy to you in the name of my King.’”^[2]

A few years before, de László’s art critic friend Alfred Lys Baldry had already identified this portrait as one of the artist’s masterpieces. He explained that de László’s methods were “pointed at an ultimate result, not at some momentary achievement which may or may not have the possibilities of permanence. Look, for instance, at the manner of his brushwork – it is expressively displayed in such portraits as those of The Duchess of Wellington, General the Earl of Cavan, and Colonel E.M. House. The sharpness and clear-cut decision of his touch, the almost uncompromising directness of his handling, and the clean directness of his executive treatment will remain as salient features of his paintings so long as any of the paint he has put upon the canvas is left.”^[3]

De László’s choice to have an even black background, combined with the portrayal of Lord Cavan in a dark blue frock coat^[4] and khaki overcoat, lay emphasis on the intensity of the sitter’s face, and expression. The firm grip of Lord Cavan’s left hand on his sword, defined by the finest of brushstrokes, also conveys the strength and energy of the sitter. The apparent economy of means de László used in the present portrait greatly contributes to the sense of power and virility which emanates from the work.

In 1912, de László painted a portrait of the sitter’s first wife [4665], for which a sketch (probably rejected) in oils exists [4040]. Lord Cavan was also painted by Sir William Orpen and Francis Dodd, and is included in John Singer Sargent’s group Some General Officers of the War of 1914-18.^[5] A contemporary copy of the present portrait, by Sydney Percy Kendrick, the artist’s most favoured copyist, is in the possession of the Irish Guards at their Regimental Headquarters in Wellington Barracks, London.

Frederic Rudolph Lambart was born on 16 October 1865 at the Rectory, Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, the eldest son of the 9th Earl of Cavan and his wife Mary, the only child of the Reverend John Olive. He was educated at Eton and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in 1885 as a second lieutenant, Grenadier Guards and appointed Aide de Camp to the Governor-General of Canada (Lord Stanley of Preston) 1891-93. In 1893 he married Caroline Inez Crawley, (died 1920), eldest daughter of George Baden Crawley. He succeeded his father as 10th Earl of Cavan in 1900. He served in South Africa 1899-1902 and distinguished himself during the First World War. He was appointed CB in 1915, KCB in 1917 and GCMG in 1919. In 1922 he married Lady Joan Mulholland, DBE, daughter of 5th Earl of Strafford, widow of Captain the Hon. A. E. S. Mulholland of the Irish Guards. Together they had two daughters, Elizabeth Mary (born 1924) and Joanna (born 1929).  

The 10th Earl was ADC to the King 1920-22, promoted to General in 1918 and Chief of the Imperial General Staff 1922-26, finally becoming Field Marshal in 1932. He headed the War Office Section of the British Delegation at the Washington Conference in 1921. In 1927 he was Chief of Staff aboard the Renown with the Duke and Duchess of York on their tour of Australia and New Zealand that year, while the Countess of Cavan was lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of York. He was Chairman of the National Playing Fields Association from 1936 until 1941 and in 1937 he commanded the Troops at the Coronation of King George VI. In 1944 he became President of the newly-formed Army Benevolent Fund. A kind and gregarious man, he was energetic and generous, and had a very good sense of humour. In the old Dictionary of Bibliography, H. P. Croft described him as, “Short in stature, very strongly built, with a somewhat large head, he meets you with a merry twinkle in his eyes, and you find a rather unusual type of soldier, statesman, leader, and friend all rolled into one.” Fond of hunting, fishing, shooting, golf, and tennis in his younger days, he was Master of the Hertfordshire Hounds from 1912-1914 and again after the First World War. Lord Cavan died in London on 28 August 1946, and was succeeded by his brother.

EXHIBITED:  

•Rome, International Fine Arts Exhibition (Mostra Internazionale di Belle Arti), November 1923, no. 3

•Royal Academy of Arts, London, The One Hundred and Forty-Fifth Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1913, no. 167

LITERATURE:  

•The Studio Magazine, London, 1916, Vol. LXVIII, Article pp. 145-56, ill. p. 150

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection, 23 September entry, p. 270 (Kendrick copy)

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 350

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 25

•DLA019-0172, letter from Major-General Robert Valentine Pollok to de László, 13 June 1931 (Kendrick copy)

•DLA019-0171, letter from de László to Major-General Robert Valentine Pollok, 23 June 1931 (Kendrick copy)

•DLA123-0105, letter from Lord Cavan to de László, 18 August [possibly 1931]

With our thanks to John Cox for his biography of the sitter

CC 2008