6843

Henry George Alan Percy, Lord Warkworth 1916

Head and shoulders to the right, looking full face to the viewer, wearing an open-necked organza frilled shirt

Oil on canvas, 59.7 x 48.3 cm (23 ½ x 19 in.)

Inscribed lower right: László / 1916 July 16   

Inscribed top left: George 

Laib L7909 (789) / C3 (13)  Master Bonsor-Ridley [sic]

Sitters’ Book II, f. 6: Warkworth July 16th 1916. / [in the artist’s hand: (son of Lord / Earl Percy)]

Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon House

This was the first of five portraits de László painted of the Northumberland children. It was executed in 1916, when George Percy was four and at the time when the artist was working on a full-length portrait of his mother, then Lady Helen Percy [6841]. It seems it was a commission, and not a memento, as suggested by a letter from Earl Percy, in which he thanks the artist for his wife’s and his son’s portraits: “I was delighted with George’s picture which we have here in London. […] I shall be glad if you will let me know what we owe you for the pictures.”^[1] The present work was cherished by Lord Warkworth’s mother, who wrote years later in an emotional letter to de László: “It hardly seems possible that [George] is now 21, especially when I look at that lovely portrait you did of him when he was a little boy.”^[2]

Henry George Alan Percy, Lord Warkworth, was born on 15 July 1912, the eldest son of Alan Percy, later 8th Duke of Northumberland [6848] and his wife Lady Helen Gordon-Lennox [6841]. George V was his sponsor. He was educated at Eton and succeeded his father as 9th Duke in 1930, aged eighteen. He became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Privy Seal in June 1935 and Parliamentary Private Secretary of State for Air in December the same year. He went on to serve during the Second World War as a Lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards. He was killed on 21 May 1940 in action at Tournai, in Flanders, during the retreat to Dunkirk, aged twenty-seven. He was unmarried, and the title passed to his brother Lord Hugh Algernon Percy.

PROVENANCE:

The 8th Duke and Duchess of Northumberland

By descent in the family

LITERATURE:

•Catalogue of Paintings, compiled by the Eighth Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1930, no. 440

•DLA043-0129, letter from Earl Percy to de László, 27 August 1916

•DLA021-0009, letter from the Duchess of Northumberland to de László, 20 July 1933

CC 2011