Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822) politician

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Foreign. Commonwealth & Development Office, Carlton Gardens

This is a copy by Dorofield Hardy (active 1882-1931) of a three-quarter length portrait of Viscount Castlereagh by Sir Thomas Lawrence, now in the Royal Collection. It shows the sitter facing the viewer, holding a rolled paper and wearing the Garter star, which he was awarded in 1814, the year that the original portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy. This is one of two copies after Thomas Lawrence's 1814 portrait presented to the Government by Lord Londonderry in 1926.

Sir Thomas Lawrence was born in Bristol; the son of a supervisor of excise. In 1773 the family moved to Wiltshire to run a coaching inn but financial difficulties led them to move again to Bath, where Lawrence first worked as a portraitist. He may have had lessons from William Hoare, before enrolling at the Royal Academy schools in 1787. Aged 20, he received a royal commission for portraits of Queen Charlotte (1789-90) and Princess Amelia (1789). At 23 he replaced Reynolds as Painter-in-Ordinary and at 25, became a Royal Academician. Despite such success, he never escaped crippling debt. In 1815 he was knighted and commissioned to paint the Waterloo Chamber series of portraits. He replaced West as President of the Royal Academy in 1820.
Dorofield Hardy was a painter of figures, landscapes, interiors and miniature portraits. In 1889, he was living in Pembridge Place, Bayswater, when he exhibited a single work at the Royal Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street, entitled ‘A New Piece’. Following this he exhibited at numerous other venues, including 16 works at the Dudley Gallery, London; eleven at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and eight at the Royal Miniature Society. Hardy was also frequently employed to produce accurate copies of works by other artists.

People

Robert, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd Marquess of Londonderry Stewart (1769 - 1822)

Places

Subjects

paper (as Subject), male portrait, man, 18th century costume, ring, cravat, Order of the Garter, Marquess, curtain

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Sir Thomas (after) Lawrence
Dorofield Hardy (1853 - 1937)

Title

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822) politician

Date

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 127.00 cm, width: 102.00 cm

Acquisition

Presented by Lord Londonderry, 1926

Inscription

On stretcher, in pencil: "Copied by Dorofield Hardy from the original by Sir Thos. Lawrence PRA"

Provenance

Presented to the Foreign Office by Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry in 1926, having been lent in 1925 to be hung in the Foreign Office during the signing of the Treaty of Locarno

GAC number

0/96