Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769—1830)

These three portraits of Anna-Maria Charlotte, Lady Nelthorpe (left), Sir John, 6th baronet (centre) and Charlotte, Sir John’s niece, were painted in London sometime in 1789.

Each year the family would spend several months during the summer “doing the season” in the capital.


The son of an innkeeper Devizes, Lawrence was born in Bristol on 13 April 1769. As a young man he won a reputation as a prodigy for his profile portraits in pencil of guests. Later he began to work in pastel, and in 1780, when his family moved to Bath, he set up professionally. He had little formal education or artistic training, but was working in oils by the time he moved to London in 1787.

There he studied at the Royal Academy schools for a short time and was given encouragement by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was handsome, charming, and exceptionally gifted. His early success was phenomenal — at 20 years of age he was summoned to Windsor to paint the portrait, later widely acclaimed, of Queen Charlotte.

He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1791 and an academician in 1794. He eventually became the Society’s President.