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Lot Essay
The son of the Irish peer and landowner, Luke, 1st Viscount Mountjoy (1745-1798), Charles Gardiner succeeded his father as 2nd Viscount in 1795 before being created Earl of Blessington in 1816. Two years later, after the death of his first wife with whom he had several children, he married Margaret Farmer, née Power (1789-1849). The Irish-born Countess had previously been unhappily married to Maurice St. Leger Farmer, a Captain in the 47th Regiment of Foot. After only three months of marriage however, in March 1804, the couple had separated. Having resigned his commission, Farmer travelled to India, returning to Ireland in 1816 where he died a year later after falling from a window while drunk. The widowed Margaret formed a close attachment with Captain Thomas Jenkins of the 11th Light Dragoons and was living with him when she met Lord Blessington. Blessington was obliged to reimburse Jenkins £10,000 for the clothing and jewelry acquired for her. The debt settled, Blessington and Margaret married in February 1818 and established their London residence in St James’s Square. The couple travelled to Italy in 1822 where the Countess later met Lord Byron at Genoa. She recorded the details of their meetings and later published them in her Conversations with Lord Byron in 1824. The Earl died of a sudden stroke in Paris in 1829. Following her husband’s death, Margaret became a celebrated writer, editing several popular journals of the day, as well as becoming a literary hostess at Gore House in South Kensington, surrounding herself with writers like Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson and Benjamin Disraeli (who wrote his 1837 novel Venetia there).
Lawrence’s portrait of the Earl is likely that recorded in The Claims of Works of Art, Books etc. under the Estate of the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, drawn up by the artist’s executor Archibald Keightley in 1830. A painting of the ‘Late Earl of Blessington’ was recorded as having been started in 1815 or 1816 and as ‘4/5 finished...w.l. [whole length] price 300 Gs’ (Garlick, loc. cit., 1964). The later date would appear to be entirely appropriate for the portrait, since it was in this year that the sitter, who wears the ermine-lined robes of his position, was created Earl of Blessington. Indeed, the commission of a full-length portrait in the regalia of his new station was presumably designed to commemorate this institution. As the leading portraitist of English Society during the early nineteenth century, Lawrence was an obvious and fashionable choice for such a commission. Indeed, his work was evidently admired by the Earl and his wife. In the posthumous inventory of the painter’s studio, five paintings were recorded as belonging to the Earl’s estate including, alongside the present work, two portraits of the Countess and Lawrence’s portrait of the actor John Philip Kemble as Cato (National Portrait Gallery, London, inv. no. 6869), which Blessington had commissioned in 1811. Another portrait of Margaret, Countess of Blessington (Wallace Collection, London, inv. no. P558) had been painted by Lawrence in circa 1821 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year where, according to Lord Byron, it ‘set all London raving’.
The present portrait appears to have passed to the sitter’s sister, the Honourable Louisa Gardiner, who had married the Rev. Robert Fowler (d. 1841) of Rahinston House in County Meath, Ireland in 1796. It remained in the family at Rahinston until 2010.
Lawrence’s portrait of the Earl is likely that recorded in The Claims of Works of Art, Books etc. under the Estate of the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, drawn up by the artist’s executor Archibald Keightley in 1830. A painting of the ‘Late Earl of Blessington’ was recorded as having been started in 1815 or 1816 and as ‘4/5 finished...w.l. [whole length] price 300 Gs’ (Garlick, loc. cit., 1964). The later date would appear to be entirely appropriate for the portrait, since it was in this year that the sitter, who wears the ermine-lined robes of his position, was created Earl of Blessington. Indeed, the commission of a full-length portrait in the regalia of his new station was presumably designed to commemorate this institution. As the leading portraitist of English Society during the early nineteenth century, Lawrence was an obvious and fashionable choice for such a commission. Indeed, his work was evidently admired by the Earl and his wife. In the posthumous inventory of the painter’s studio, five paintings were recorded as belonging to the Earl’s estate including, alongside the present work, two portraits of the Countess and Lawrence’s portrait of the actor John Philip Kemble as Cato (National Portrait Gallery, London, inv. no. 6869), which Blessington had commissioned in 1811. Another portrait of Margaret, Countess of Blessington (Wallace Collection, London, inv. no. P558) had been painted by Lawrence in circa 1821 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year where, according to Lord Byron, it ‘set all London raving’.
The present portrait appears to have passed to the sitter’s sister, the Honourable Louisa Gardiner, who had married the Rev. Robert Fowler (d. 1841) of Rahinston House in County Meath, Ireland in 1796. It remained in the family at Rahinston until 2010.