SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A.* (1769-1830)

Details

SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A.* (1769-1830)

Portrait of George Nugent-Grenville, 2nd Baron Nugent of Carlanstown, GCMG., MP., (1789-1850), standing full length on a dune, wearing a black costume and a black cape, a view of the ocean beyond

oil on canvas
94¼ x 58 1/8in. (239.4 x 147.7cm.)

Provenance

by family descent to Major E.H.T. Boilleau, by whom loaned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, Nov. 20, 1987, lot 99 (#60,000)
with Richard L. Feigen and Co., New York; from whom purchased by Rudolf Nureyev for $325,000

Literature

Lord R.S. Gower, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1900, p. 152
G.W. Layard, Sir Thomas Lawrence's Letterbag, 1906, pp. 124-8
Sir W. Armstrong, Lawrence, 1913, p. 155
K. Garlick, Notes on Sir Thomas Lawrence, The Burlington Magazine, XCII, August 1951, p. 253
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1954, p. 52
K. Garlick, A Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings and Pastels by Sir Thomas Lawrence, Walpole Society, XXXIX, 1964, p. 153
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1989, pp. 246-7, no. 613, illustrated

Exhibited

Bristol, Festival of Britain Exhibition, Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., 1951, no. 25
New York, Richard L. Feigen & Co., Sir Thomas Lawrence & Sir David Wilkie Two Romantics, March 21-May 15, 1993, no. 5, illustrated

Engraved

W. Ward, 1822, in mezzotint (J. Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotint Portraits, 1883, IV, p. 1475, no. 64)

Lot Essay

Lord Nugent (1788-1850) was the younger son of George Nugent-Temple, 1st Marquis of Buckingham and Lady Mary Elizabeth Nugent. In 1800, his mother was created a Baroness of the Kingdom of Ireland to which he succeeded on her death in 1813. In the 1812 General election he was returned as Member of Parliament for Aylesbury and remained there until the dissolution in 1832, soon after which he was appointed Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. A man of literary tastes, he wrote several books including 'Memorials of John Hampden' in 1832, 'Lands Classical and Sacred', 1845-6 and 'Legends of the Library at Lilles'. In 1813, he married Anne Lucy, daughter of Major-General the Hon. Vere Poulett, who predeceased him by two years, in 1848.

This portrait was painted between 1813 and 1820. The companion portrait of Lady Nugent was also begun in 1813, but remained unfinished