6841

Lady Helen Percy, née Lady Helen Gordon-Lennox 1916

Full-length standing on a terrace, a garden landscape and stormy sky beyond, wearing a long ivory gown, a black chiffon stole, and four rows of pearls round her neck

Oil on canvas, 242 x 116.9 cm (95 ¼ x 46 in.)

Inscribed lower right: László / 1916 / July   

Laib L9930 (889) / C21 (25): Lady Percy Perry [sic]

NPG 1912-16 Album, p. 45, where labelled: The Countess Percy / Duchess of Northumberland / 1916.

Sitters’ Book I, f. 105: Helen Percy  Sept 28th 1915. 

Sitters’ Book II, f. 6: Helen Percy July 5h 1916.

Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle

This unusual full-length portrait was commissioned by Lady Helen Percy’s father, the 7th Duke of Richmond, to hang at Goodwood.^[1] The sitter offered de László ideas for the composition in an undated letter to the artist: “We have got a print of a very fine Vandyck of Lady Lucy Percy^[2] afterwards Countess of Carlisle and Percy thought if you liked her position I might be done something in the same way, but you would have to say exactly what you thought & you might not think it would be in the least nice, and think of something much better.”^[3] 

De László did not take direct inspiration from Van Dyck’s famous portrait, which depicted Lady Lucy Percy in a blue dress and in profile to the left by a column, but he certainly emulated the grand manner tradition in this work. More likely prototypes are probably Reynolds’s portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire,^[4] and Gainsborough’s portrait of the same sitter.^[5] Apart from the architectural foreground of a stately home and the open vista onto a vast garden which features in both portraits, the Duchess’s full-length figure is also draped in a long white dress. It seems de László drew on Reynolds’s portrait for the balustrade and the train of Lady Percy’s gown, whilst her pose, stole and cross-over neckline strongly evoke Gainsborough’s work. As for the wind-swept effect of Lady Helen’s white dress, it is likely de László also looked at Reynolds’s portrait of Diana Sackville.^[6]

De László’s picture was well received. When it was exhibited at the French Gallery in 1923, the reviewer of the Daily Sketch commented: “László makes nearly all his women seem much younger and certainly much more beautiful than they really are. Perhaps that is why he is so much sought after. Obviously, though, it was not for this reason that the Duchess of Northumberland has patronised him, for no one could make her more beautiful on canvas than she really is. Her full-length portrait, in a white satin dress, is beside that of the Duke of Sutherland, in naval uniform [2126] and is by far the most attractive thing in the room.”^[7]

After painting the present portrait de László gave Lady Helen a photograph of a self-portrait inscribed with the words: to the Countess of Percy / in souvenir of the memory / delightful hour at the studio / 1916 July / László. The artist had the deepest admiration for Lady Helen Percy’s character and beauty. He painted her for the first time in 1915 in a white dress trimmed with blue, but that portrait remains untraced. He painted her again in 1928 with her son Lord Geoffrey Percy [6865], and in 1937 in her coronation robes [6868]. Her daughter, Lady Elizabeth Percy was painted in 1922 [6845]. The sitter’s eldest sister, The Lady Evelyn Cotterell, had already been painted in 1913 [4185].  

Lady Helen Magdalen Gordon-Lennox was born on 13 December 1886, the youngest daughter of Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 7th Duke of Richmond (1845-1928) and his wife Isabel Sophie Craven (1863-1887). On 18 October 1911, she married Alan Ian Percy (1880-1930) [6848], son of Henry George Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, and Lady Edith Campbell. There were six children of the marriage: Henry (born 1912), killed in action at Tournai in 1940, Hugh Algernon (born 1914), Lady Elizabeth (born 1916), Lady Diana (born 1917), Lord Richard (born 1921), and Lord Geoffrey (born 1925) [6865]. In 1920 she was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and she held the office of Justice of the Peace. She was A.D.C. to Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone [2447] and between 1937 and 1964, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother [4460]. In 1938, she was invested as a Dame Grand Cross, Royal Victorian Order (G.C.V.O.). In 1939 she was appointed Staff Captain of the Women’s Transport Services (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), a position she held until 1943, when she gained the rank of Commander. She was decorated with the award of the Order of Mercy, and invested as an Officer of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. After a widowhood of almost thirty-five years, she died on 13 June 1965, aged seventy-eight.

EXHIBITED:

•French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1923, no. 32

LITERATURE:  

•The Tatler, no. 829, 16 May 1917, p. 214, ill.

•The Illustrated London News, 2 June 1923, ill.

•Catalogue of Pictures compiled by the 8th  Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1930, no. 438, ill. pl. 2

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1939, p. 305

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2004, p. 204, fig. 94

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 128, 150, 210, 279

•Northumberland, Ralph Percy, Duke of, Lions of the North: The Percys & Alnwick Castle, A Thousand Years of History, Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2019, ill. p. 147

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 58

•DLA081-0010, letter from Lady Helen Percy to de László, undated

•DLA094-0083, Daily Sketch, undated (1923)

CC 2011