Completed Dress and Textiles, Portraits: British 20th C 15 Who painted Maud, Countess of Arran?

Maud, Countess of Arran
Topic: Artist

Not much can be found online about Maud Jacqueline Marie Beauclerk van Kattendyke (also spelt Kattendijke) who was born in 1879 (?) and died in 1927. She married Arthur Gore, 6th Earl of Arran, in 1902. A portrait of him, also by an unknown artist (maybe the same?) is also in the collection of the Moorfield Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. See https://bit.ly/3elU53B

Andrea Kollmann, Entry reviewed by Art UK

Completed, Outcome

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14 comments

Martin Hopkinson,

The artist was probably a specialist portraits of figures in high society - a sort of earlier Philip de Laszlo?

Mark Wilson,

Datewise it could be de Laszlo himself. After his marriage to a Guinness in 1900, he's fairly active in the UK and Anglo-Irish aristocrats are exactly who he is painting a lot of. That said I'm not convinced it's quite his style and his stuff is usually quite well signed.

If the pictures are a pair, they must date after the Earl was made a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in December 1909. He is in full regalia, so they could have been painted to mark that occasion and the ages look right enough, though anytime in the following decade would be plausible. It might be possible to work out more exactly from the other decorations.

Both portraits are seen slightly from above, which is unusual and might suggest they were painted to be displayed in a particular position.

Jacinto Regalado,

It looks c. 1910. I suppose John Lavery is a possibility.

Marcie Doran,

I have researched the sitter and I believe the work is by the French artist Gabriel Nicolet (1856-1921), who painted her parents in 1892.

Maud Jacqueline Marie Beauclerk Huijssen van Kattendijke was born on December 12, 1879 in The Hague, Holland, according to an online posting on “Find A Grave” (https://tinyurl.com/rn3caa7s). A plaque and her grave are located at St. Giles Churchyard, Mountnessing, Brentwood Borough, Essex. She passed away on March 6, 1927.

An Ancestry tree and the Dutch archives on openarch.nl show that her parents were Johan Frederik Emanuel Aaron Huijssen Van Kattendijke (“Baron Van Kattendijke”) and his wife Mathilda Juliana Van Kattendijke (née Luby) who had married on March 12, 1874 in Dublin. The date of the marriage was registered in the Dutch records on December 3, 1875, here: https://tinyurl.com/57rwpyd9.

An Ancestry tree shows that Baron van Kattendijke was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on December 27, 1843, and passed away on March 9, 1917, at Via Romana, Bordighera, Italy. Wikipedia indicates (in the entry for Arthur Gore) that he was the 3rd Baron Van Kattendijke of The Hague (https://tinyurl.com/m6vx5eny).

An Ancestry tree shows that Mathilda Juliana Luby was born in Dublin, on June 5, 1852, to The Reverend Thomas Luby, D.D, (1800-1870), a mathematician, and his wife Jane Luby (née Rathborne)(1815-1900). The Dutch archives show that she passed away at La Loggia, Bordighera, Italy, on 21 November 1926 (https://tinyurl.com/53v6kuef).

Maud married Arthur Jocelyn Charles Gore, 6th Earl of Arran (1868-1958), on August 16, 1902, at Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames. The marriage announcement is attached. The notarial deed of August 7, 1902, on openarch.nl is here: https://tinyurl.com/hhapfnkh. See the bottom of that page for the scan of the original document. On an iPad, touch the image and it will no longer be blurry. The Dutch archives have a record of her marriage in Gravenhage (Netherlands) dated December 16, 1902. See the bottom of that page for the scan of the original document (https://tinyurl.com/au76frr3).

According to Wikipedia, Arthur Gore was “an Anglo-Irish peer and a soldier”. https://tinyurl.com/m6vx5eny An article by Douglas Coe about Arthur Gore on the Sawbridge Local History Society website is here: https://tinyurl.com/yp4srzrh

The 1901 England Census shows Maud and her mother living with her widowed aunt and three servants (housemaid, footman, cook) at 16 Lowndes Square, Knightsbridge. The aunt was Leticia Florence Bowen (“Lady Bowen”)(née Luby), Mathilda’s sister. Lady Bowen’s second husband was Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-1899), the first Governor of Queensland, Australia (https://tinyurl.com/w3efnjm3).

The Census of England and Wales 1911 (attached) shows “Maud Jacqueline Countess of Arran” and “Arthur 6th Earl of Arran, K.P.” living at Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth, Chelmsford, with their two sons (Arthur Viscount Sudley, age 7, and the Honourable Arthur Gore, “under 9 months”) and 15 servants. Wikipedia and an Ancestry tree show the sons were Arthur Paul John James Charles Gore (1903-1958) and Arthur Kattendyke Strange David Archibald Gore (1910-1983).

According to openarch.nl and an Ancestry tree, Maud had two brothers: Maurits Johan Emanuel Huijssen Van Kattendijke (October 21, 1876 (Arnhem)-1961). https://tinyurl.com/w8zs7m3t and Johan Frederik Adolph Edmund Huijssen Van Kattendijke, who passed away in Arnhem at the age of 17 on August 24, 1893 (https://tinyurl.com/38vek6be).

Note that Huijssen is sometimes spelt Huyssen, Kattendijke is sometimes spelt Kattendyke, and Beauclerk is sometimes spelt Beauclerck.

Portraits of her parents by the French artist Gabriel Émile Édouard Nicolet (1856-1921) created in 1892 are listed on the website of the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie) in The Hague.

1. signed and dated lower left: G. Nicolet / 1892
inscription on the back: Mathilde Giuliana Luby / wife of / Frèderik Johan Emanuel / Baron Huyssen van Kattendyke
https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/263039
and

2, signed and dated lower right: G. Nicolet / 1892
inscription on the back: Frederic Johan Emanual Baron Huyssen van Kattendyke / zoon van Johan Maria Baron Huyssen van Kattendyke / geboren te genève 27 Dec. 1843 / Huwde te Dublin / Mathilde Giuliana Luby
https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/263025

Kieran Owens,

Attached are the 1874 Dublin marriage certificate and Pall Mall Gazette newspaper announcement for the wedding of Johan Frederik Emanuel Aaron Huijssen Van Kattendijke and Mathilda Juliana Luby.

Kieran Owens,

A portrait attributed to Gabriel Emile Nicolet (1856-1921), signed and dated 1892, of Maud Jacqueline Marie Beauclerk Huijssen van Kattendijke, when she was 13 years old, was sold for £200 at Barnes, Hampton & Littlewoods auctioneers in 2013:

https://bit.ly/3k2Ll7x

"The Castle Hill Attic Sale Collection consists of more than 100 lots being offered on the instructions of The Earl and Countess of Arran from the attics of their home at Castle Hill, near Filleigh, in North Devon."



Osmund Bullock,

The reason for their portraits being at Moorfields is that Lord Arran was Chairman of the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital for over 25 years 1908-1934, a period that encompassed considerable exansion, a rebuild in 1912, and finally a move from just off the Strand to much bigger and better premises in Holborn in 1928. He and his wife were tireless fundraisers as its income fell behind rapidly-increasing patient numbers and costs. Lady A was also very active in the hospital itself, frequently visiting staff and patients, even during the long illness that finally killed her in 1927. After a troubled existence during WWII, it and the Central (Judd St) merged with Moorfields in 1947, and the combined hospital joined the NHS in 1948.

Lady Arran's portrait may possibly have a signature in the bottom left-hand corner, though I can't see anything on his - see attached detail (brightness & contrast adjusted). If Art UK has a higher-res of the portrait on file, could we see that area of it, please?

Osmund Bullock,

And thanks again, David. Another illusion - what looked like a row of letters seem to coincide with ridges in the impasto, and I think is just the result of a line of wear to the paint's surface, possibly from the frame rebate. I fear the success rate of these enlargement requests runs at about one or two in a hundred!

Kieran Owens,

Would it be the opinion of this discussion's contributors that this portrait has been overpainted so as to obliterate the background or that it was the artist's intention to render it as it is?

Andrew Shore,

Going back to Osmund's suggestion of a signature bottom left, I think it may be true that there is something, but it requires a lot of Photoshop work to differentiate the colours (essentially black on black).

I've done this with a higher resolution version and I think I can make out 'Waller' (see attachment).

This could be Mary Lemon Waller perhaps, who signed 'M L Waller': https://artuk.org/discover/artists/waller-mary-lemon-18511931

Although she was known for child portraits, she clearly did paint ones of adults, as the Art UK records show, and is working at the right sort of time, and in a similar style.

I can't find anything specific in the newspapers about the portraits, as many searches are hampered by poor character recognition of 'Moorfields' and 'Arran'. The hospital was also called the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital in some mentions, and Moorfields in others... Some history of the name (which Osmund has already outlined above) is on Moorfields' own website: https://www.moorfields.nhs.uk/content/our-history

1 attachment
Osmund Bullock,

Andrew, I can't agree about the signature, much as I would like to: I still think the apparent initials are just wear from the frame rebate on brush-stroke ridges in a heavily-applied paint layer. This is most obvious in what you see as the double-L of 'Waller', the uprights of which follow exactly the line of two such ridges clearly visible in the paint above them. I don't think that can be just coincidence - see attached.

The Royal Westminster Opthalmic Hospital survived under that name until 1947, twenty years after Lady Arran's death in 1927, and thirteen after Lord Arran resigned as Chairman in 1934. So I think it's unlikely the portraits would have been acquired by Moorfields per se (i.e. from 1948). I suppose it's just possible they arrived after the Earl's death in 1958; but I rather doubt they'd have been offered or accepted by a hospital in the NHS so many years after the couple's involvement with just one of several predecessors that weren't.

I also did a lot of searching in the BNA, but for a slightly different combination of words (e.g.'Westminster' rather than 'Moorfields'); I had no more success than you, though.