Sargent Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent 1904

Helen Venetia Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon (''née'' Duncombe; 6 March 1866 – 16 May 1954) was a British noblewoman, socialite and diarist.

Early life

Lady Helen was born at 20

Grosvenor Square Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the Mayfair district of London. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from the duke's surname "Grosvenor". It was developed for fashionable re ...

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world. ...

, London, the daughter of William Duncombe and Mabel Violet Graham. The family seat was at Duncombe Park in Helmsley, North Yorkshire, England. Her father was elevated to the peerage as Baron Feversham in 1867 and again as Earl of Feversham in 1868. She and her sister, Hermione, Duchess of Leinster, were renowned as leading beauties in their circle.

Marriage

Helen married Sir Edgar Vincent, then a governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople on 24 September 1890. In 1899 he was elected a Member of Parliament for

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

. Lady Helen, in that period, was "the most celebrated hostess of her age and was 'by reason of her outstanding beauty, intelligence and charm, one of the most resplendent figures'".Rintoul, M. C. (1993) ''Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction.'' London: Taylor & Francis. p. 919.

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Activities and later years

Helen was associated with " the Souls", a salon of noted intellectuals of the day which included Arthur Balfour, George Curzon, Henry James and

Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray ...

. She is believed to have been the model for the characters of Lady Thisbe Crowborough in Max Beerbohm's story ''Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton'' in ''

Seven Men ''Seven Men'' is a collection of five short stories written by English caricaturist, essayist and parodist Max Beerbohm. It was published in Britain in 1919 by Heinemann. In the United States there was a 1920 limited edition from Alfred A. Knopf ...

'' (1919) and for Lady Irene Silvester in Maurice Baring's story "A Luncheon Party" (1925). In 1904 during an extended visit to

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, Lady Helen's portrait was painted by

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

. That work is now part of the permanent collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. During World War I Lady Helen trained as a nurse anaesthetist and treated thousands of patients. Many letters describing her war work were sent to her friend Teresa Hulton, later the 8th Lady Berwick of Attingham Park. Lady Helen accompanied her husband (created 1st Baron D'Abernon in 1914) as he served on the Interallied Mission to Poland and as the

British Ambassador The Heads of British diplomatic missions are persons appointed as senior diplomats to individual nations, or international organisations. They are usually appointed as ambassadors, except in member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations wh ...

to the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s. During this time the Baroness kept a diary of her experiences, parts of which were published in 1946 as ''Red Cross and Berlin Embassy, 1915-1926: Extracts from the Diaries of Viscountess D'Abernon''. At the end of his diplomatic mission, Sir Edgar was elevated to 1st Viscount D'Abernon on 1 January 1926, and then also succeeded his brother, Francis, as 16th Baronet of Stoke d'Abernon. The Vincents did not have children and Sir Edgar's titles died with him in 1941. Lady D'Abernon died at age 84 on 16 May 1954.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vincent, Helen 1866 births 1954 deaths Daughters of British earls People from Mayfair British socialites D'Abernon