The decoration of the portico dates to 1928 and the patronage of Gladys Deacon, the second wife of the 9th Duke of Marlborough, who commissioned British war artist Colin Gill to paint the eyes of her and her husband in 1928. The duchess allegedly scaled Gill's ladder waving a silk scarf so that he might perfect the exact shade of her famously disarming eyes. Having studied at London's lade School of Fine Art, Gill was dispatched to the Western Fronting France during the First World War, where he employed his artistic training working as a camouflage officer. On his return, he was commissioned to paint a contemporary history painting commemorating the dead for a memorial project known as the Hall of Remembrance, a commemorative building that was never completed. His observations of trench warfare can be seen in the work Heavy Artillery (1919) in the Imperial War Museum, London.
Celebrated for her meteoric beauty and famed for her intellect and wit, the duchess beguiled Europe, capturing the admiration of Marcel Proust, Auguste Rodin (who gifted her a sculpture), Claude Monet, and the Crown Prince of Prussia, among many others. Born in Paris to American parents, she spent most of her early years in France, including an education in a convent to which she was sent after her father murdered her mother's lover.