Sir Edgar Vincent (1857-1941) was Governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank and later Ambassador to Berlin. In 1890 he married Lady Helen Vincent (née Duncombe), described by contemporaries as the most beautiful woman of her generation, who Sargent painted in 1904. Sir Edgar was made Baron D'Abernon in 1914, G.C.M.G. in 1917, and Viscount in 1926. From 1929 to 1934 he was Chairman of the Medical Research Council, and made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1934. He was extremely knowledgeable in ancient and modern art and was a trustee of both the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. His home, Esher Place in Surrey, was built for the first Viscount d'Abernon in 1895-8 and the sitter arranged for a sunken garden to be designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1905. In 1934 he bought the mansion house Stoke D'Abernon, Surrey, and returned to the Vincent family seat

We are very grateful to Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray for their help in cataloguing this lot which will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray in association with Warren Adelson and Elizabeth Oustinoff