Artwork
The Right Honourable Lord Stanley of Alderley (1766–1850)
The Right Honourable Lord Stanley of Alderley (1766–1850) is an oil painting by the British Romanticist artist Frederick Bacon Barwell. It dates from 1866 and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
About this work
Overview
Frederick Bacon Barwell’s 1866 oil portrait depicts the Right Honourable Lord Stanley of Alderley, who lived from 1766 to 1850. The work is part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection. Rendered in a restrained palette, the painting presents the sitter in a formal pose, emphasizing his dignified bearing.
Subject & Meaning
The portrait shows Lord Stanley with short, curled hair and a solemn expression, dressed in a dark jacket, white shirt and black bow tie. The focus on his face, rendered with subtle modelling, conveys a sense of gravitas appropriate to his status as a peer and public figure of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Technique & Style
Barwell employs a modest chiaroscuro, using gentle contrasts of light and shadow to model the sitter’s features and give the composition a three‑dimensional quality. The muted colour scheme and restrained brushwork reinforce the formal, somber tone typical of mid‑nineteenth‑century British portraiture.
History & Provenance
Created in 1866, the painting entered the Victoria and Albert Museum’s holdings at an unspecified later date. It remains attributed to Barwell, whose oeuvre includes several portrait commissions for the British aristocracy, situating this work within his broader practice of documenting prominent individuals.
Artist & collection
William Mulready (1786–1863), RA (design for a mosaic in the Victoria and Albert Museum)
The Right Honourable Edward Cardwell (1813–1886)
The Right Honourable Henry Labouchere (1798–1869), Lord Taunton
The 1st Marquis of Ripon (1828–1909) (sketch for a bust)
The Right Honourable Lord Aberdare (1815–1895)
The Right Honourable Lord Sydenham (1799–1841)
The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1823–1889)
The Right Honourable Joseph Warner Henley (1793–1884)
