Lawrence, SIR THOMAS

Lawrence, SIR THOMAS, portrait-painter and President of the Royal Academy, was born at Bristol, an innkeeper's son, on 4th May 1769, and at the early age of ten years began to draw portraits in crayons at Oxford, afterwards at Bath. At the age of eighteen he entered as a student of the Royal Academy, having a little while previously taken to painting in oil. In 1791 he was elected associate, and in 1798 full member. After Reynolds' death he was appointed limner to the king in 1792, and was knighted in 1815; and on Benjamin West's death in 1820 he succeeded him as President of the Royal Academy. He died in London, 7th January 1830. Lawrence was the favourite portrait-painter of his time, had an immense practice, and obtained higher prices perhaps than were paid to any previous portrait-painter. His talent was overrated during his lifetime; his work, in spite of the elegance and taste that often distinguish it, scarcely rises above the conventional level. See Life and Correspondence of Sir T. Lawrence, by Williams (1831); and Lord R. Gower's Romney and Lawrence ('Great Artists' series, 1882) and Sir Thomas Lawrence (1900).