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Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. – Portrait of William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790–1858). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

This arresting portrait of William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, is lot 22 at Sotheby’s Old Master and 19th century paintings evening auction in London on December 4. The estimate is £300,000-500,000. Inheriting the title at just 21 he was one of the greatest patrons of the arts of any age in British history. In the first year of his accession alone he commissioned Samuel Ware to draw up plans for the refurbishment of his two central London properties, Devonshire House and Burlington House, both in Mayfair; despatched William Atkinson to Ireland to carry out alterations to Lismore Castle, the family’s medieval stronghold atop a cliff on the banks of the Blackwater in County Waterford; and constructed the largest conservatory yet built in England on newly acquired land at Chiswick House, the celebrated Palladian villa which had been built by his great-grandfather, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington. He transformed Chatsworth from a country house into a palace beyond parallel in England and it is largely due to his energies that Chatsworth is today one of the richest private collections of Western Art anywhere in the world.