| The Red Boy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Sir Thomas Lawrence |
| Year | 1825 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 137.2 cm× 111.8 cm(54.0 in× 44.0 in) |
| Location | National Gallery, London |
The Red Boy, or Master Lambton, are popular names for a portrait made in 1825 by Sir Thomas Lawrence. It is officially entitled with the name of its subject, Charles William Lambton, who was the elder son of John Lambton (later created Earl of Durham).
Charles William Lambton was born 16 January 1818, the elder son of John Lambton, who was then a Member of Parliament for County Durham, and his second wife Louisa. He was baptised on 12 February 1818 at St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street, which at the time was the parish church of his family home, Lambton Castle. [1] He was named for his grandfathers, Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who later became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and William Henry Lambton.
John Lambton was raised to the peerage as Baron Durham in 1828, whereupon Master Lambton became The Honourable Charles William Lambton and heir to his father's title and estates. However, Charles died young at Brighton on 24 September 1831, aged 13 from tuberculosis. He was buried at St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street on 7 October 1831. [2] Charles's younger brother, D'Arcy, thus became the heir. After John Lambton was further created Earl of Durham in 1833, D'Arcy inherited the titles on the death of his father in 1840.
The portrait of seven year old Charles William Lambton was painted for the subject's father by Sir Thomas Lawrence for the price of 600 guineas (about £46,000/$57,000 in 2014) and was completed in 1825. [3]
William T. Whitley's Art of England 1821–1837 (1930) states a contemporary writer in News of Literature and Fashion reported that Lawrence had originally painted the boy's clothes in yellow, despite the latter's father being called the "yellow dandy". John Lambton tormented Lawrence "on the score of the unfitness of the colour, until he got it blotted out by the crimson." Whitley also mentions that when the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825, the Hanging Committee of George Jones, Alfred Edward Chalon and Thomas Phillips chose the painting to be hung high up in the School of Painting, away from the Great Room. Lambton believed this to be due to him being a Whig and declared he would never buy another picture from a Royal Academician. [4] However, D. E. Williams's The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Kt. published in 1831 claims that the original yellow "produced an unpleasant monotony with the browns of the gravel and rocks forming the background." [5] The painting later attracted much praise when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1827. [6]
The death of the third Earl of Durham in 1928 and the fourth earl a year later in 1929 brought large death duties. As the new fifth earl used Lambton Castle only occasionally, he closed it and held an auction of its valuable furniture and paintings in 1932, which included The Red Boy. [7] [8] However, after two years, the reserve was not met after each bid and the painting remained unsold in 1934. [9]
In 1929, the painting was exhibited at the North East Coast Exhibition, then in 1934 at Bessie Surtees House, both in Newcastle Upon Tyne. [10] It was also exhibited as part of an exhibition that ran alongside the Festival of Britain at Bowes Museum in 1951 and again there in 1988. [11] [12]
In July 2021 the National Gallery, London announced that it would acquire the painting from a private collection for £9.3 million, joining five other portraits by Lawrence in its collections. [13]
Albert Scholick Wilkin featured the painting on his Wilkins Red Boy Toffee. [14]
Megan Marshall's The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (2005) mentions Sophia Hawthorne and Elizabeth Peabody as having copied the painting. [15]
In 1936, Charles's great-niece, Diana Mary Lambton, married William Hedworth Williamson at St Margaret's, Westminster, and their pageboys wore matching outfits to the painting. [16] Raymond Jolliffe (later Baron Hylton) also wore the same as a pageboy at Lord Lovat's wedding in 1938. [17]
In 1967, the artwork became the first painting to appear on a British postage stamp. [18] [19]
Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.
John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham,, also known as "Radical Jack" and commonly referred to in Canadian history texts simply as Lord Durham, was a British Whig statesman, colonial administrator, Governor General and high commissioner of British North America. A leading reformer, Durham played a major role in the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. He later served as ambassador to Russia. He was a founding member and chairman of the New Zealand Company that played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand. George Woodcock says that he was, "Proud, wayward, immensely rich, with romantic good looks and an explosive temper." He was one of those "natural rebels who turn their rebellious energies to constructive purposes. Both at home and abroad he became a powerful exponent of the early nineteenth-century liberal spirit."
Thomas Phillips was a leading English portrait and subject painter. He painted many of the great men of the day including scientists, artists, writers, poets and explorers.
Earl of Durham is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1833 for the Whig politician and colonial official John Lambton, 1st Baron Durham. Known as "Radical Jack", he played a leading role in the passing of the Great Reform Act of 1832. As Governor General of British North America, he was the author of the famous Report on the Affairs of British North America, known in Canada as the Durham Report. He had already been created Baron Durham, of the City of Durham and of Lambton Castle in the County Palatine of Durham, in 1828. He was created Viscount Lambton at the same time that he was raised to the earldom. These titles are also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Antony Claud Frederick Lambton, also known as Lord Lambton, was a British aristocrat who served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1951 to 1973. Styled as Viscount Lambton from 1941 to 1970, he became the 6th Earl of Durham in February 1970 but disclaimed the title soon after. As a result of a sex scandal in 1973, he resigned from Parliament and ministerial office. He was a cousin of Alec Douglas-Home, who was Prime Minister for a year from 1963 to 1964.
Sir George Hayter was an English painter, specialising in portraits and large works involving sometimes several hundred individual portraits. Queen Victoria appreciated his merits and appointed Hayter her Principal Painter in Ordinary and also awarded him a Knighthood in 1841.
Lambton is the name of several places and people:
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Great Lumley is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated south east of Chester-le-Street, near Lumley Castle. It has a population of 3,843, reducing to 3,684 at the 2011 census.
This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Durham.
Frederick William Lambton, 4th Earl of Durham was a British hereditary peer and a Liberal politician.
This is a list of the High Sheriffs of County Durham, England.
Sir Hedworth Williamson, 7th Baronet was an English Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1831 and 1852. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge.
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Palatine Lodge No. 97 is a Craft Masonic Lodge in Freemasonry under the jurisdiction of the United Grand Lodge of England. The Lodge meets at Wearside Masonic Temple, Burdon Road, Sunderland and has done so since 1932. Previously the Lodge met at the Masonic Hall in Park Terrace, which was dismantled in 1988, rebuilt and opened in April 2000 at the Beamish Open Air Museum, Stanley, County Durham, England.
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