Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830)

Thomas Lawrence was the most fashionable and also the greatest portraitist of his generation. Lawrence was born in Bristol, moved with his family to Devizes and then to Bath.

He dominated the art of portrait painting in England for forty years, undertaking commissions for the future George IV from 1814. After 1818 Lawrence was largely occupied in the major royal commission for a series of portraits of the European leaders who had combined to defeat Napoleon. The series was initially proposed for Carlton House, but George IV's plans for Windsor Castle latterly came to include a new room specially created (from an open courtyard) for the display of Lawrence's portraits, the Waterloo Chamber.