“Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry” by John Singer Sargent

Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry

John Singer Sargent

1904

Oil on canvas

287 x 195.6 cm (113 x 77 inches)

Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2003.274)

Complete title: “Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry, Carrying the Great Sword of State at the Coronation of King Edward VII, August, 1902, and Mr. W. C. Beaumont, His Page on That Occasion”

Gift of an American Private Collector and Museum purchase with the generous assistance of a Friend of the Museum, and the Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, M. and M. Karolik Fund, Harry Wallace Anderson Fund, General Funds, Francis Welch Fund, Susan Cornelia Warren Fund, Ellen Kelleran Gardner Fund, Abbott Lawrence Fund, and funds by exchange from a Gift of John Richardson Hall, Bequest of Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow, Gift of Alexander Cochrane, The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund, Anonymous gift, and Bequest of Maxim Karolik

Commentary from the MFA website by Erica E. Hirshler

Sargent was engaged to paint this stunning and flamboyant portrait by the marchioness, replying positively to her letter of invitation on January 13, 1904, and alerting her to the cost of the commission: 1,200 guineas (£1,260). He recreated the event’s solemn magnificence by posing Lord Londonderry, in the full regalia he had worn, in his Tite Street studio. As the work neared completion, Sargent wrote to thank Londonderry for his patience with “those arduous sittings in panoply” that had led to his successful likeness. No stranger to aristocratic portraiture at this point in his career, Sargent had no doubt studied the work of his artistic predecessors, in particular Lawrence’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington carrying the Great Sword of State (1814–15, Royal Collection, United Kingdom), which shows the duke holding the same weapon aloft. According to the artist’s letter, Sargent amended the background of his portrait late in the process based on ideas he devised while making sketches of the architecture of Westminster Abbey, where the coronation had taken place (one watercolor study of the abbey survives, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Sargent used the shadowy spaces of the Gothic cathedral to set off the brilliant white, gold, and crimson of Lord Londonderry’s garments. Against a somber background of one of the great colonnetted piers of the nave, enlivened by the shimmer of colored light falling from the stained glass windows, Londonderry stands erect, holding the heavy, yard-long sheathed sword upright before him, as he would have carried it during the coronation. He wears the fur-trimmed velvet cloak of his rank over the full dress uniform of a privy councillor and his chest is adorned with prestigious decorations, including those representing his membership in the Order of the Bath and the Order of the Garter, whose distinctive blue band is also displayed proudly below his left knee. For Sargent, these symbols of honor and authority were an excuse to show off: great slashes of thick white paint define the lining of Londonderry’s heavy mantle and the folds in his white silk breeches, flickers of yellow and gold shimmer across his chest. Despite (or conceivably because of) these flourishes, Londonderry himself seems somewhat meek—perhaps, even in his splendor and dignity, a bit overwhelmed by the grandeur of the occasion. — [The preceeding paragraphs are only part of Hirshler’s discussion, for which see the MFA site (link). — George P. Landow]

Bibliography

Comey, Janet L. Impressionism Abroad: Boston and French Painting. Ed. Erica E. Hirshler et al., exh.cat. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2005.

Last modified 26 May 2016