Rediscovery: A Freshly Uncovered Portrait of a Lady by Sir Thomas Lawrence, c. 1805

By 1805, Lawrence was at the pinnacle of British portraiture, having long since eclipsed his early rivals to become the preferred painter of royalty, aristocracy, and literary figures. This era saw him produce iconic female portraits that captured the romantic spirit of the time, with their soft lighting, refined textures, and an almost ethereal quality that made his subjects appear both idealised and vividly present.

Although Lawrence never worked as a painter of pure landscapes, he worked them into the majority of his pictures to a greater or lesser degree. In many of his pictures, he included only a very small landscape vignette (sometimes of a recognisable view), or perhaps a sunset. He usually included a turbulent sky to add to add a sublime dimension to a painting. Whilst these conventions were relatively commonplace in British landscape painting of the period, Lawrence’s landscape backgrounds are painted with a vivacity and an individual flair the like of which is perhaps found only in portraits by Gainsborough, who was, unlike Lawrence, a landscapist in his own right. Lawrence’s landscape backgrounds are distinctive in both colouring and handling; this is never more evident than when he gave himself over to producing an imaginary landscape covering an entire canvas in which to situate his subject. A good example of this is Lawrence's Lady Hamilton as Penserosa (1792). This landscape – a true tour de force – would not have been painted from life but rather invented in the studio. Lawrence painted in the details in thick, assured brushstrokes governed by instinct rather than topographical description. His colouring followed suit, with sharp, pure white passages picked out against dark shadows. He clearly delighted in the use of yellows, reds and russet in his landscape backgrounds – it is surely no coincidence that many of his best are autumnal.

Born in Bristol in 1769 to an innkeeper father, young Thomas grew up amid the bustle of of coaching inns. When the family took over the Black Bear Inn in Devizes, Wiltshire, in 1773, the precocious child - largely self taught - began sketching likenesses of the inn's guests: travellers, merchants, and fashionable visitors en route to Bath's famous waters. By age ten, he was already earning money for his struggling family through these impromptu portraits, often in pastel or pencil, while charming patrons with recitations of poetry and Shakespeare. The novelist Fanny Burney, staying at the inn around 1780, was astonished by the "lovely boy... not merely the wonder of the family but of the times for his astonishing skill in drawing." These early drawings in the lively atmosphere of a pub laid the foundation for Lawrence's legendary gift for likeness and rapid, instinctive execution. From such modest origins, he rose to paint kings and conquer the salons of Europe.