National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | The Edwardians

This portrait of Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale, came to epitomise the Edwardian aristocrat: a sportsman, soldier, courtier and landowner. Sargent portrayed him as being alert and upright, a man with a strong physical presence, immaculately dressed, but with an expression that suggests he may have been stubborn at times. While Sargent revealed everything about his subject, in another sense he gave nothing away — he presented Ribblesdale’s public face and not his private life.