Lady Victoria Manners

Lady Victoria Manners, 1912.

Victoria Harriet Marjorie Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey (née Lady Victoria Harriet Marjorie Manners) (20 December 1883 – 3 November 1946) was a British writer on art, an illustrator, and a member of the peerage.

Biography

Lady Victoria was the oldest daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland, a British peer, and Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland, an artist. Her brother John was an art expert who became the 9th Duke of Rutland, and her sister Diana was an actor, author, and socialite.[1]

In 1920, she coauthored (with art historian G.C. Williamson) a study of the neoclassical painter Johan Zoffany that is considered the first in-depth study of the artist. Johan Zoffany, R. A.: His Life and Works 1735-1810 was published in a limited edition of 500 copies, privately printed.[2]

She and Williamson also cowrote a study of the painter Angelica Kauffmann, one of only two women artists who were founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA). Angelica Kauffmann, R.A.: Her Life and Her Works (1924) was prompted by the discovery in the RA archives of a manuscript in Kauffmann's handwriting, written in Italian and previously untranslated, which gives an account of Kauffmann's paintings post-1781.[3][4] Manners and Williamson wrote that this enabled them to "come to certain definite conclusions regarding many pictures hitherto ascribed to other artists."[4] They included numerous reproductions in both color and black-and-white on the grounds that prior books on Kauffman had presented inadequate reproductions of her paintings.[4]

Among her other books is one on the portrait and genre painter William Peters. She also wrote articles on art for magazines like The Conoisseur.

Manners illustrated Alicia Amherst's London Parks and Gardens (1907), which is considered the first serious and deeply informed book on London's open spaces. [5]

Marriage and children

In 1912, she married Charles Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey, a British peer, farmer and soldier, and thereby became the Marchioness of Anglesey.[6] Their wedding was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.[7] They had six children:[1]

Residences

Up to World War I, Manners and her family lived primarily at Beaudesert, the family home of the Paget family in Staffordshire. After the war, they moved to Plas Newydd, a large country house in Wales that features extensive trompe l'oeil murals by the artist Rex Whistler.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 Person Page-1600 (Lady Victoria Marjorie Harriet Manners). Peerage.com website.
  2. ↑ Treadwell, Penelope. Johan Zoffany: Artist and Adventurer. Paul Holberton, 2009.
  3. ↑ Findlen, Paula, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama. Italy's Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour. Stanford University Press, 2009, pp. 396–97.
  4. 1 2 3 Manners, Lady Victoria, and G.C. Williamson. Angelica Kauffmann, R.A.: Her Life and Her Works. London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1924.
  5. ↑ Tankard, Judith B. "Reviews: Sue Minter, The Well-Connected Gardener". Garden History, vol. 39, no. 2, 2011, pp. 284–85.
  6. ↑ Person Page-1600 (Charles Henry Alexander Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey). Peerage.com website.
  7. 1 2 "Obituary: The Marquess of Anglesey". The Times Digital Archive, 22 February 1947.
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