Lawrence, Thomas (1769–1830)

English painter. He was the leading portraitist of his day, becoming painter to George III in 1792 and president of the Royal Academy from 1820 to 1830. One of his finest portraits is Queen Charlotte (1789; National Gallery, London).

An infant prodigy, he was already successful and celebrated for his likenesses at Bath before he was twelve, and with little instruction he quickly became accomplished in oil painting, receiving the homage of society as the heir of the 18th-century tradition. After the Napoleonic wars he was commissioned by the Prince Regent to paint the allied sovereigns and dignitaries, travelling to Aix-la-Chapelle, Vienna, and Rome; the portraits are now in the Waterloo Room, Windsor, and include some of his most brilliant works, for example the Pope Pius VII.

He belongs to the Romantic period in the restless glitter of his style, which interested both Géricault and Delacroix, although it descends in some paintings into a superficial showiness. His collection of old master drawings, especially rich in Michelangelos and Raphaels, realized £20,000 in the sale after his death, and though not acquired entire by the nation as he had wished, part of it went to Oxford University and is now in the Ashmolean Museum. He was knighted in 1815.