“Master Lawrence takes very striking likenesses”

In 1780 Thomas Lawrence arrived in the fashionable English resort town of Bath and set up a business producing portraits.

One important early step was to create and reproduce a self-portrait demonstrating his talent as well as letting potential customers know who he was.

Thomas Lawrence’s self-portrait is here, courtesy of the British Museum. He was eleven years old.

In 1781 Thomas’s father advertised his own services as a tutor in the Bath Chronicle and added:

Master Lawrence takes very striking likenesses of ladies and gentlemen for a charge of one guinea for an oval crayon.

Eventually the father realized where the real talent was in the family and turned to steering and living off the boy’s artistic career.

The Holburne Museum in Britain has just launched its first online exhibit, tracing Thomas Lawrence’s development from a pre-teen prodigy to an elected member of the Royal Academy, still only twenty-five.

Along the way Lawrence transitioned from pencil to pastels to chalk and oil paints. He was particularly skilled at capturing images of children, some only a few years younger than he was, and that provided for the theme of this exhibit, “Coming of Age.”

Here’s an article about the exhibit from Art UK. And Number One London shared Jo Manning’s four-part series of gossipy articles about Lawrence’s later life, starting here.