page_title: Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland
section_title: Career as artist
hierarchical_section_title: Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland / Career as artist
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Norah Lindsay (1873–1948)
context_page_description: Marion Margaret Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland was a British artist and noblewoman. A granddaughter of the 24th Earl of Crawford, she married Henry Manners in 1882. She was styled the Marchioness of Granby from 1888 to 1906, when Manners succeeded as Duke of Rutland. She had five children, including the 9th Duke of Rutland and the socialite Lady Diana Cooper.
  Though she had no formal training as an artist, the Duchess painted portraits of her social circle. Many of her works were displayed at various major art exhibits in the UK, including the Grosvenor Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the New Gallery. Violet was also a prominent member of The Souls, an aristocratic social circle that favoured intellectual pursuits and avant-garde artistic tastes. Known for her beauty, she was the subject of many paintings. Watts Gallery Trust acquired a beautiful Watts portrait of her in Dec 2016. Inspired by the acquisition, John Julius Norwich donated over 40 of Violet's own drawings, including a self-portrait and a portrait of Harry Cust. She became engaged in sculpting after the death of her elder son Robert in 1894.
context_section_description: Violet was privately educated as a young girl, and her family encouraged her interest in art. While she had no formal training as an artist, she did spend a significant period of time on a visit to Italy. In 1877, she exhibited some of her drawings and sculptures at the Grosvenor Gallery, which was opened by her cousin Coutts Lindsay. She considered herself to be a professional, but her rank and gender limited her; many considered her to be merely a dilettante. Her most successful works centred on depicting members of her social circle. During her lifetime, Violet's works were on display at the main British art galleries such as the Royal Academy of Arts and the New Gallery, and also abroad in the US and France. She exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In 1925, one commentary opined that Violet's style "is particularly suited to the interpretation of feminine beauty and elegance, but she usually achieves considerable success in her delineations of men."
  Violet was a friend of the Scottish sculptor William Reid Dick, and helped him secure many aristocratic commissions. After her eldest son's 1894 death at the age of nine, the grieving Violet began sculpting; one of her works was displayed on the boy's tomb in Belvoir Castle. She considered another statue's base, which displayed her son and other members of her family, to be her greatest work. She kept it in her London house until 1937, when the Tate Gallery acquired it. In 1900, she published Portraits of Men and Women, a selection of portraits that depicted members of her social circle.
  Violet was a prominent member of The Souls, an aristocratic social circle that favoured intellectual pursuits and avant-garde artistic tastes. Formed in the 1880s, other members included Arthur Balfour and George Wyndham. The contemporary women's magazine The Lady's Realm said that Violet was "the acknowledged 'queen' of the society," who, as one of its original members, possessed "beauty, [an] unusual ability in all artistic abilities, and [a] grasp of social and economic questions [that] marked her out from the beginning as a leader."
  Violet was a noted beauty, as was her daughter Lady Diana. The Duchess was painted on numerous occasions by James Jebusa Shannon and George Frederic Watts. The historian K. D. Reynolds writes that her beauty "was of the type most admired by the Souls. Her auburn hair, pale complexion, hooded eyes, and very slim figure were invariably set off by her Aesthetic-style clothes of faded colours and soft drapings."
  She kept a studio at the Rutland estate of Bute House. After her husband's death, Violet moved to Belgrave Square, London and built a new studio to work on her art. She continued exhibiting her works up to her death; her last exhibit was in November 1937, and she died the following month after an operation.
caption: Lithograph of Norah Lindsay by Violet Manners, 1897
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.4.7", "Image DateTime": "2012:07:09 19:08:30", "Image Artist": "National Portrait Gallery London", "Image ExifOffset": "192", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "148", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "200", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "450", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "599"}