6138

Study portrait 

The Marchioness of Londonderry, née the Honourable Edith Chaplin 1927

Half-length in profile to the right, head turned in three-quarter profile, wearing an ivory dress with a brown wrap around her shoulders, the Londonderry tiara, drop earrings and necklace

Oil on board, 101.6 x 63.5 cm (40 x 25 in.)

Inscribed lower right: Study of Lady Londonderry / 1927 / de László   

Laib L17689 (484) / C15 (32)  

NPG Album 1933, p. 22

Studio Inventory, p. 10 (56): The Marchioness of Londonderry. Acquired from the Trustees after the death of the Artist

Mount Stewart, Londonderry Collection, The National Trust

This is the third and last portrait of Lady Londonderry by de László. Painted for his own pleasure, it remained in his personal collection until his death in 1937. Having previously portrayed his sitter with her lurcher against a landscape in 1913 [6142] and in the uniform of the Women’s Legion in 1920 [6133], here the artist depicted her in a regal attitude, wearing the Londonderry family jewels.

The imposing ‘All Around Diamond’ Londonderry tiara, set with 1,141 brilliant cut diamonds weighing 482 ½  carats, had been designed for Frances Anne Vane, 3rd Marchioness of Londonderry (1800-1865), by the Crown jeweller Garrard in 1854.^[1] It was made from the Down diamonds which were part of the dowry of Mary Cowan, wife of Robert Stewart and mother of the 1st Marquess of Londonderry. Known in the family as the ‘Family Fender,’ it was later altered considerably for Theresa, Marchioness of Londonderry [6128].^[2] The tiara and the diamond drop earrings are currently on loan by the family to the V&A for display in their jewellery galleries.  

Edith, Theresa’s daughter-in-law particularly enjoyed wearing the Londonderry jewels. When she put them on for the state opening of Parliament in 1924, the Illustrated London News noted afterwards that they were “a heritage, and one in which Britishers all round take a vicarious pride.”^[3] 

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [6142].

PROVENANCE:

In the possession of the artist on his death;

Acquired from his Trustees by the sitter’s family;

Given to the National Trust by Lady Mairi Bury, daughter of the sitter, 1976

EXHIBITED:  

•Hôtel Charpentier, Paris, Exposition P.A. László, 1931, no. 67 The Marchioness of Londonderry DBE 

•M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., London, Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., Loan Exhibition held in aid of The Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, June - July 1933, no. 29

LITERATURE:

•M. Knoedler & Company, inc. Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O: Loan Exhibition Held in Aid of the Artist’s General Benevolent Institution, Strangeways, London, 1933, p. 15, ill.

•Illustrated London News, 17 June, 1933, p. 906, ill.

•The Daily Telegraph, 21 June 1933

•Sykes, Simon, Private Palaces, London, 1985, p. 335, ill.

•Scarisbrick, Diana, Tiaras, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000, pp. 78-79

•Munn, Geoffrey C., Tiaras. A History of Splendour, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001, pp. 124, ill. pl. 105 & p. 207

•A Captivating Collection, Mount Stewart, National Trust, 2015, p. 20, ill. 

•Evans, Siân, Queen Bees: Six Brilliant and Extraordinary Hostesses between the Wars, Two Roads, 2016, ill. between pp. 184-185

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance,

Blackmore, 2024, p. 25, ill. p.24  

CC 2010