13370

Sir Gerard Augustus Lowther, 1st Baronet 1915

Half-length in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing diplomatic uniform with decorations including the sash of the Order of St Michael and St George and the badge of the Order of the Bath

Oil on canvas, 115.6 x 83.8 cm (45 x 33 in.)

Inscribed top left: P. A. de László / 1915 XII

Private Collection

In 1914 Sir Gerard Lowther retired from the diplomatic service and was made a baronet. This portrait may have been commissioned to commemorate these events. The artist’s wife Lucy de László noted in her diary that de László travelled to the sitter’s house, Whitehall, near Sandwich in Kent, to paint the portrait and that Lowther was very ill at the time. The artist must have been aware that Lowther's illness was terminal and painted one of the finest examples of his study portraiture of this period. Lowther died just four months later.

De László painted Sir Gerard’s wife in 1921 [9143], the sitter’s elder brother, The Honourable James Lowther in 1908 [10209][12462][13338] and his wife’s sister Mrs William Payne Thompson in 1916 [1855].

Gerard Augustus Lowther was born on 16 February 1858, the son of the Honourable William Lowther (1821-1912) and his wife Charlotte Alice Parke, daughter of James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale. He was a nephew of the famous sportsman Lord Lonsdale. He was educated at Harrow and in 1879 entered the diplomatic service. He served in Tokyo, Budapest, and Washington, before his appointment in August 1901 as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Chile.

He served as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. where he met Alice Blight (1873-1939), daughter of Atherton Blight of Philadelphia. They were married on 28 February 1905 in London. There were three daughters of the marriage: Edith Alice (born 1906) who in 1945 married Roger de Vilmorin, illegitimate son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain; Gladys Mabel (born 1908) and Violet Eleanor (born 1910), who died when only a year old.

Lowther was Minister at Tangier until 1908 and Ambassador at Constantinople from 1908-1913. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1904, a Knight Commander of St Michael and St George and a Privy Counsellor in 1908, and a baronet in 1914.

He died on 5 April 1916.

LITERATURE:

•DLA007-0013, letter from Lady Herbert to de László, 3 March 1915

•DLA046-0019, letter from Lady Lowther to de László, 15 October 1916

•DLA075-0042, letter from Lady Lowther to de László, 1 September 1921

•DLA075-0043, letter from Lady Lowther to de László, 14 September 1921

•László, Philip de, January-June 1935 diary, private collection, 20 April entry, p. 94

KF & MD 2020