Country Life
Trending:
March 5, 2021 The Queen s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, with Sir Thomas Lawrence s George IV, 1821. Credit: Malcolm Park/Alamy Live News. Credit: Alamy
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) graduated from being a child prodigy who sold his first sketch aged five to a great portraitist who met his match in royal women. This year he is celebrated in an exhibition at The Holbourne Museum; Matthew Dennison finds out more.
Thomas Lawrence was never paid for the portrait he painted, in 1789, of George III’s wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Instead, the precocious 20 year old submitted the picture to the Royal Academy (RA) in the spring of 1790, where it was judged among ‘the best Portraits in the Room’.