Part 4 (2/2)
The seat of the family is the renowned Eaton Hall, near Chester; that stately mansion set in the centre of a country rich in pastoral beauty. Its enlargement and beautification was begun by the second Earl in 1802, and has been carried on by its present lord until it is now the most magnificent of all the modern mansions of the n.o.bility.
G.F. Watts's heroic equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus, the founder of the family and a nephew of William the Conqueror, challenges admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by Pickersgill, in 1825,--this picture of the latter being much inferior to Lawrence's,--while the present generation was painted almost wholly by Millais,--that of Constance, the Duke's first wife, being especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor family.
Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous ma.s.s of records of fair women these five have left us!--Reynolds, supreme in style, painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh; Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal; Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative, and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise; Lawrence, elegant, charming,--a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his ”Mademoiselle Hillsberg,”--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of n.o.ble dames by him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the t.i.tle ”Bygone Beauties,”--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning; Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the d.u.c.h.ess of Rutland. These are indeed ”a select series of ladies of rank and fas.h.i.+on.” And with these must be cla.s.sed that sweet ideal face of Mrs, Arbuthnot, known as ”Marcia.” At this late date it gives us greeting from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal to the pa.s.ser-by from how many a print-shop window!
There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things to all men. ”The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and sometimes trespa.s.s on moral as well as professional chast.i.ty,” and ”Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my wife,” were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival. But it is recorded that thenceforth Lawrence's commissions from fair sitters multiplied.
Sir Thomas was a finished flatterer. No man ever knew better, except it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush. This form is the substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are gladly paid. Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every picture. But the artist was a courtier in speech and manners as well, and this got him into trouble once. He was attentive to the ill-used Princess Caroline,--markedly attentive! A royal commission inquired into his conduct, but absolved him from the charges of wrongdoing.
When Lady Grosvenor, who had become Marchioness of Westminster, was an old lady, in 1881, she wrote in a letter to Lord Leveson Gower her recollections of the painter: ”His manners were what is called extremely 'polished' (not the fault of the present times). He wore a large cravat, and had a tinge about him of the time of George IV., pervading his general demeanor.... I should not say he was amusing, but what struck me most, during my two hours sitting in Russell Square, was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits. Before any color was put on, the drawing itself was so perfectly beautiful that it seemed almost a sin to add any color.” This portrait of her, which was painted at this one sitting, is considered the very best Lawrence ever painted. The head has distinction and hauteur, albeit the face is sweetly ingenuous. And the eyes! Well, Sir Thomas always excelled here! Never, since t.i.tian, has painter given us such ”strange sweet maddening eyes,”--
”Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in Glimmer of emerald,--thus those eyes of hers!”
This picture now hangs in the gallery of Stafford House, and was mezzotinted by Cousins, in 1844, and included in the published collection of the artist's works. This volume is representative of the artist. It opens with that perennially delightful picture of the ”Calmady Children,” called ”Nature,”--one of the very best and sweetest representations of child life ever made. Here is the elemental artlessness of nature, and here the beat.i.tude of innocence.
Another child-picture is the portrait of Lady Emily Cowper, afterwards Lady Ashley, called ”The Rosebud.” Among the ladies shown are Lady Leicester, Lady Lyndhurst, and Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, the picture of the latter being surpa.s.sing in its elegance. That majestically maternal picture is here of Lady Gower and Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower,--not our Elizabeth Mary, but she who became d.u.c.h.ess of Argyll.
The Countess of Grosvenor was a lady of high character and most affable manners, and held her exalted position with a dignity of demeanor and a bearing worthy of a descent from the n.o.ble Gowers, lords of Sittenham. Her residence latterly was Motcombe House, near Shaftesbury, Dorsets.h.i.+re. She lived on until our own day, dying at the age of ninety-four.
In 1840-41 she accompanied her husband on a yacht voyage in the Mediterranean, an entertaining account of which she published in two volumes. She was a keen politician, as so many ladies of rank are in England. In 1873 Lady Westminster's son, then Lord Robert Grosvenor, spoke in favor of the Liberal candidate for Shaftesbury. The candidate told her tenants that he believed her ladys.h.i.+p was not averse to his candidature. It was putting his fingers into the den of the apparently sleeping lioness. She wrote sharply: ”I beg to undeceive you. I am most anxious for the success of the conservative cause, connected as it is with the preservation of our religion and our loyalty to our Queen.”
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