Charles Shaw Lefevre, 1st Viscount Eversley

Charles Shaw-Lefevre served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1839 to 1857, the longest tenure in the role during the nineteenth century. Hayter’s portrait study from around 1832, now in the Parliamentary Art Collection, captures him before his election to the Speakership, when he was simply an ambitious Whig MP. The painting documents a key figure in Victorian parliamentary procedure. George Hayter was the preeminent British history and portrait painter of the early Victorian era, appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1841.

The preparatory study shows Hayter’s standard approach to his House of Commons portrait sketches: a focused head-and-shoulders view with quick, accurate rendering of the sitter’s distinctive features.