Jane Austen's Neville Stephen Lytton Church In Steventon (hampshire)

Neville Stephen Lytton (1879-1951) - Steventon Church in Hampshire

This is the parish where Jane Austen's father officiated as a child.

Oil on canvas, work signed lower right: Signature and date 1934; artist's studio stamp on back

Provenance: artist's studio background

Dimensions 51 x 43.5 cm

Small wear to report

Neville Stephen Lytton (1879-1951), 3rd Earl of Lytton, Member of the Order of the British Empire, was a British artist.

He was the youngest son of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, and the grandson of the famous novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler. Neville Lytton was born in India, while his father was viceroy.

He studied at Eton and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. During the First World War, Neville Lytton served as an officer on the Western Front, playing an active role particularly in the Somme and Amiens. According to contemporary accounts1, he was regarded as "a gentleman of the old school" and served "with gallantry and distinction". For his services, the French government awarded him the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.

Shortly after the end of the war, the Imperial War Museum and the Musée de la Guerre, in France, acquired examples of his art, many of which apparently traveled with him. A fresco by Lytton reflecting his wartime experience can be seen on display in the Victory Hall of the village of Balcombe (West Sussex).

Between approximately 1900 and 1940, Lytton exhibited his work in leading galleries such as the Alpine Club Gallery, Beaux Arts Gallery, Dowdeswell Galleries, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Academy, London. Neville Lytton was also elected an Associate of the Société nationale des beaux-arts in Paris, where he exhibited his work.

He married Judith Blunt, later Baroness Wentworth, in 1899, from whom he divorced in 1923. From this union were born three children, Noel Anthony Scawen Lytton-Milbanke, 4th Earl of Lytton and 17th Baron Wentworth, Lady Anne and Lady Winifred, inherited from their maternal grandmother Augusta Ada Byron.

A profile sketch of the Earl is on display at the National Portrait Gallery.

For love of a young Frenchwoman , Alexandra Fortel , he decided to abandon his fortune as well as his aristocratic life in the UK.

A few years after his divorce in 1923, He remarried Alexandra Fortel. The Count and his second family resided in Paris, rue du Val de Grâce.

The couple maintained many friendships in political, artistic and intellectual circles. Notably with Winston Churchill and Theodor Pallady.