Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue
Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (1845-1916), Dilettante, sculptor and writer; Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Sculptor and writer; born 2 August 1845 in London, youngest son of 2nd Duke of Sutherland. [1] Following Eton and Cambridge became a Liberal MP 1867–74, after which studied sculpture in Paris under Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse; exh. Royal Academy 1877–97, Grosvenor Gallery and Paris Salon 1880–81; his most famous work is a Shakespeare monument (1888) now in Stratford-upon-Avon; a plaster version of his full-length figure of Disraeli (1878–9) is in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 652); after 1888 relinquished sculpture in favour of historical monographs and reminiscences; from 1874 a Trustee of the NPG who personally unlocked the doors of the new building in St Martin’s Place on 4 May 1896; homosexual in orientation, he frequented and entertained a set of aesthetes including Oscar Wilde and Frank Miles; [2] died 9 March 1916, at Tunbridge Wells.
He was gifted with an extreme simplicity, a deep affection, a ceaseless energy, a keen discrimination and an unusually affectionate nature … Almost from youth he had shortened down his name to its smallest limits [i.e. ‘Ronald Gower’] … [H]is perfection as a host, his generosity, his unselfishness, his great desire that all about him should be happy and that no one in his service should bear undue strain … rendered him very dear. [3]
Dr Jan Marsh
He was gifted with an extreme simplicity, a deep affection, a ceaseless energy, a keen discrimination and an unusually affectionate nature … Almost from youth he had shortened down his name to its smallest limits [i.e. ‘Ronald Gower’] … [H]is perfection as a host, his generosity, his unselfishness, his great desire that all about him should be happy and that no one in his service should bear undue strain … rendered him very dear. [3]
Dr Jan Marsh
Footnotesback to top
1) Thus belonging to ‘possibly the wealthiest aristocratic family in Victorian Britain’: Funnell & Warner 1999, p.163.
2) Wilde described him as ‘a young man with delicate aquiline nose, thoughtful oval face, and abstracted, artistic air’ (review of Grosvenor Gallery exhibition, Dublin University Magazine, July 1877) and is said to to have based the figure of Lord Henry Wootton in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) on Gower.
3) Williamson 1916, pp.268, 275.
Referencesback to top
Cooke 1968Cooke, R.C., Feasting with Panthers: A New Consideration of Some Late Victorian Writers, London, 1968.
Forrer 1904–30
Forrer, L.S., Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, Coin-, Gem-, and Seal-Engravers, Mint-Masters, &c., 8 vols, London, 1904–30.
Funnell & Warner 1999
Funnell, P., and M. Warner, Millais: Portraits, exh. cat., NPG, London, 1999.
Gower 1883
Gower, R.S, My Reminiscences, 2 vols, London, 1883.
Gower 1902
Gower, R.S., Old Diaries 1881–1901, London, 1902.
Gower 1903
Gower, R.S., Records and Reminiscences: selected from ‘My Reminiscences’ and ‘Old Diaries’, London, 1903.
Sainsbury 1933
Sainsbury, M.T., Henry Scott Tuke, RA, RWS: A Memoir, London, 1933.
Walery 1888–96
Walery [Stanislas Julian, Count Ostrorog], ed., Our Celebrities: A Portrait Gallery … Portraits by Walery, 5 vols (vol.1 ed. L. Engel), London, 1888–96.
Wallace 2008
Wallace, C., Catching the Light: The Art and Life of Henry Scott Tuke, 1858–1929, Edinburgh, 2008.
Ward-Jackson 1985
Ward-Jackson, P., ‘A.-E. Carrier-Belleuse, J.-J. Feuchère and the Sutherlands’,
Burlington Magazine, vol.127, no.984, March, 1985, pp.146–51 and 153.
Ward-Jackson 1987
Ward-Jackson, P., ‘Lord Ronald Gower, Gustave Dore and the Genesis of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford-on-Avon’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol.50, 1987, pp.160–70.
Ward-Jackson 2004
Ward-Jackson, P., ‘Gower, Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland-Leveson- (1845–1916)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004.
Williamson 1916
Williamson, G.C., ‘The Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower’, Khaki, April 1916, pp.267–76.