Lesley Lewis (art historian)
Lesley Lewis
Early life and education
Lewis was born in 1909 to an upper-middle-class family. Her father, James Lawrence, was a solicitor from a legal family that included James Bacon, vice-chancellor of the Court of Chancery.[1][2] Her mother, Kathleen (née Potts), was the daughter of a soldier. Lewis had an elder brother, Bill, and two younger sisters, Barbara and Joyce. She was the niece of Susan Lawrence, an early female MP of the Labour Party.[2]
Lewis initially lived in a village near Brentwood, Essex;[2] the family moved to a nearby country house, Pilgrims Hall, near Pilgrims Hatch, in 1913. She was educated at home by governesses until the age of seventeen; she then spent a year in Paris at a finishing school run by the Ozanne family, where she became fluent in French.[1][2] She later gained the qualifications in mathematics and Latin required for university study via a correspondence course.[2][3]
In 1932, she became one of the four founding students of the Courtauld Institute of Art, part of the University of London.[1][3] She gained BA and MA degrees in art history; "The Rise of Neo-Classic Architecture in England" was the title of her thesis, which was supervised by James Byam Shaw.[1][3]
Biography and research
On leaving the Courtauld in 1937, her first job was as registrar of the
In 1944, she married Dr David James Lewis, a
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she researched materials in the London Public Record Office and the Vienna archives of the Holy Roman Empire relating to the Jacobite Court-in-Exile in 18th-century Rome of James Francis Edward Stuart, the so-called "Old Pretender", and British travellers on the Grand Tour.[1] She collated the covert correspondence between Cardinal Alessandro Albani and Horace Mann, the English ambassor to Florence.[6][7] Her book Connoisseurs and Secret Agents in Eighteenth Century Rome, published in 1961, focuses on the secret relationship between Albani, a Hanoverian sympathiser, and Philipp von Stosch, a Prussian antiquarian and collector who was unmasked as a spy for the British government.[3][7] The book was well received,[1] and was praised by art historian Brinsley Ford for its "judgement in selection" and "skill in presentation".[7]
A subsequent area of interest was Georgian funerary monuments in Colonial Jamaica.[1][8] Lewis's obituary in The Times credits her research with stimulating the formation of the Georgian Society of Jamaica.[1] She also published articles on Georgian architecture, including Greenwich Hospital Chapel by James Stuart[9] and Home House by Robert Adam, the building that formerly housed the Courtauld Institute.[10]
Memoir
Her memoir, The Private Life of a Country House (1912–1939), recounts her childhood years at Pilgrims Hall, and forms a detailed account of upper-middle-class family life in a small English country house with servants before the Second World War.
Heritage work and later life
Lewis joined the
She was elected
David Lewis became increasingly ill during the 1980s; he died in 1986.[1][5] Lewis retained an active interest in the meetings of the Society of Antiquaries into her mid-nineties.[19] In 2005, she recorded a total of 8 hours of interview for an oral history project of the Museum of London.[21] She died in 2010, aged 100.[1][3]
Selected works
Books
- Connoisseurs and Secret Agents in Eighteenth Century Rome (1961)
- The Private Life of a Country House (1912–1939) (1980)
- The Thomas More Family Group Portraits After Holbein (1998)
Articles
- "English commemorative sculpture in Jamaica" (1972)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa "Lesley Lewis: art historian", The Times, 12 March 2010
- ^ ISBN 978-0752460512
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Janine Catalano (9 February 2010), Oldest Alumni Lesley Lewis passes away at age 100, Courtauld Institute of Art, retrieved 14 January 2016
- JSTOR 1568367
- ^ a b Memoirs., The National Archives, retrieved 15 January 2016
- JSTOR 298730
- ^ JSTOR 873752
- British Archaeology (117), archived from the originalon 2 April 2016
- JSTOR 3047144
- JSTOR 875377
- ^ a b Christopher Long (1980), "Book review: A glimpse of a very private way of life", Chelsea News, retrieved 15 January 2016
- ISBN 1448112516)
- ^ A few examples are The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside Since 1900 by Alun Howkins (2003), Nanny Knows Best: The History of the British Nanny by Katherine Holden (2013), Country House Society: The Private Lives of England's Upper Class After the First World War by Pamela Horn (2013) and The Country House Servant by Pamela Sambrook (2013)
- ISBN 978-0752494661
- ^ Arrangements for handling heritage applications – notification to Historic England and National Amenity Societies and the Secretary of State (England) Direction 2015 (PDF), UK government, retrieved 26 January 2016
- The Georgian Group, archived from the originalon 29 March 2015, retrieved 26 January 2016
- ^ Tim Walker (14 March 2014), "Neil Kinnock's former aide causes uproar at Georgian Group", The Telegraph, retrieved 26 January 2016
- ^ a b "Issue: 228", Salon, Society of Antiquaries of London, retrieved 14 January 2016
- ^ About the Fellowship, Society of Antiquaries of London, retrieved 14 January 2016
- ^ "Lewis, Lesley", Exploring 20th Century London, archived from the original on 7 March 2016, retrieved 27 January 2015