Harold Lee-Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon
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- subject matching 'Pets and animals - Wild and exotic animals'
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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Harold Lee-Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon
by Sydney William Carline
cast lead medal, 1913
3 1/8 in. (79 mm) diameter
Given by subscribers, 1913
Primary Collection
NPG 3259
Sitterback to top
- Harold Lee-Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon (1844-1932), Antiquary; Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. Sitter in 19 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 1 portrait.
This portraitback to top
In 1913, Charles Holmes, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, proposed that a medal should be cast to mark Lord Dillon's long-standing chairmanship of the Gallery's Board of Trustees, as he recorded in his autobiography, Self & Partners (Mostly Self), 1936: 'The fine head and presence of our Chairman suggested a portrait metal, for which the Board subscribed. At Oxford I had made the acquaintance of Sydney Carline, son of a well-known local painter, himself a modeller of promise. Carline produced a good likeness, and for the reverse of his medal designed, in Pisanello fashion, an armadillo (see NPG D7032), that being Lord Dillon's telegraphic address as Keeper of the Tower Armouries. The medal bears his motto, 'DUM SPIRO SPERO' (While there's life, there's hope). When the bronze casts arrived, the new metal looked so cheap and common that we did not dare to distribute them until they had been slightly toned down, and considerably begrimed, by exposure on the Gallery roof.' However, Carline himself claimed to have killed the newness of the bronze medals by using nitrous acid. Bronze casts were made for the Chairman and Deputy Chairman and for presentation to the British Museum, the Society of Antiquaries and the Tower Armouries, lead casts for Holmes and one of the Trustees and plaster casts for the other Trustees. The Gallery owns Carline's working plaster casts and waxes (see Related works, below) and some initial sketch designs, while other drawings belong to the British Museum. At his death, Lord Dillon bequeathed to the Gallery the great full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I ('The Ditchley portrait') among other works.
Related worksback to top
Linked publicationsback to top
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 180
Subjects & Themesback to top
Events of 1913back to top
Current affairs
The Suffragette, Emily Davison dies after stepping out in front of the King's horse as a protest at the Epsom Derby. In the same year the Liberal government passed the Cat and Mouse Act allowing them to release and re-arrest Suffragettes who went on hunger strike while in prison. Davison, herself, had been on hunger strike and was force-fed while detained at Holloway Prison.Art and science
Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring comes to London following its premier at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Audiences were shocked by Stravinsky's rhythmic and dissonant musical score and by the violent jerky dancing of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which were intended to represent pagan ritual.International
Henry Ford introduces the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company, rapidly increasing the rate at which the famous Model T could be manufactured, leading to massive growth in the motorcar industry and demonstrating to other industries the efficiency of mass production.Comments back to top
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