Editing Thomas Lawrence (section)

== Legacy ==
Lawrence's friends asked Scottish poet [[Thomas Campbell (poet)|Thomas Campbell]] to write the artist's biography, but he passed on the task to D.E. Williams, whose two rather inaccurate volumes were published in 1831.<ref>Levey 2005: 302–3</ref> It was nearly 70 years later, in 1900, before another biography of Lawrence appeared by [[Lord Ronald Gower]]. In 1913, Sir Walter Armstrong, who was not a great admirer of Lawrence, published a monograph. The 1950s saw the publication of two further works: [[Douglas Goldring]]'s ''Regency portrait painter'', and Kenneth Garlick's catalogue of Lawrence's paintings (a further edition was published in 1989). [[Michael Levey|Sir Michael Levey]], curator of the [[National Portrait Gallery (London)|National Portrait Gallery's]] 1979–80 Lawrence exhibition, produced books on the artist in 1979 and 2005. Lawrence's entanglements with the Siddons family has been the subject of three books (by Oswald Knapp, [[André Maurois]], and [[Naomi Royde-Smith]]) and a recent radio play.

[[File:Portrait of Elizabeth Farren, by Thomas Lawrence.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1|[[Elizabeth Farren]]'s portrait, {{circa|1790}}, went to the United States.]]
Lawrence's reputation as an artist fell during the Victorian era. Critic and artist [[Roger Fry]] did something to restore it in the 1930s, when he described Lawrence as having a "consummate mastery over the means of artistic expression" with an "unerring hand and eye".<ref>Roger Fry (''Reflections on British Painting'', 1934) quoted in Levey 2005: 309</ref> At one time Lawrence was more popular in the United States and France than in Britain; and some of his best known portraits, including those of [[Elizabeth Farren]], [[Pinkie (Lawrence painting)|Sarah Barrett Moulton]] (known to her family as Pinkie) and Charles Lambton ([[The Red Boy|the "Red Boy"]]) found their way to the United States during the early-20th-century enthusiasm there for English portraits. Sir Michael Levey acknowledges that Lawrence is still dismissed by some art historians: "He was a highly original artist, quite unexpected on the English scene: self-taught, self-absorbed in perfecting his own personal style, and in effect self-destructing, since he left behind no significant followers or creative influence. Leaving aside Sargent, his sole successor has been not in painting, but in fashionable, virtuoso photography."<ref>Levey 2005: 312–13</ref>
[[File:Pinkie detailed.jpg|thumb|upright=1.07|[[Pinkie (painting)|''Pinkie'']] – a portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton, 1794]]

The most extensive collections of Lawrence's work can be found in the [[Royal Collection]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/egallery/maker.asp?maker=11738 |title=The Collection |work=royalcollection.org.uk}}</ref> and the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]] in London.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?search=sa&sText=thomas+lawrence&LinkID=mp02654&role=art |title=National Portrait Gallery – Person – Sir Thomas Lawrence |work=npg.org.uk}}</ref> The [[Tate Britain]], the [[National Gallery, London|National Gallery]] and the [[Dulwich Picture Gallery]] house smaller collections of his work in London. There are a few examples of his work in the [[Holburne Museum of Art]] and the [[Victoria Art Gallery]] in Bath, and in [[Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery]]. In the United States, [[The Huntington Library]] houses [[Pinkie (Lawrence painting)|''Pinkie'']], and Lawrence's portraits of [[Elizabeth Farren]], Lady Harriet Maria Conyngham, and the Calmady children are in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]. In Europe, the [[Musée du Louvre]] has a few examples of Lawrence's work, and the [[Vatican Pinacoteca]] has a [[swagger portrait]] of [[George IV]] (presented by the king himself) as almost its only British work.

In 2010 the [[National Portrait Gallery (London)|National Portrait Gallery]] held a retrospective exhibition of Lawrence's work. The director of the National Portrait Gallery, [[Sandy Nairne]], was quoted in ''[[The Guardian]]'' describing Lawrence as "…a huge figure. But a huge figure who we believe deserves a great deal more attention. He is one of the great painters of the last 250 years and one of the great stars of portraiture on a European stage."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/aug/04/national-portrait-gallery-thomas-lawrence |title=National Portrait Gallery shines light on forgotten artist Thomas Lawrence |work=The Guardian |date=4 August 2010 |access-date=24 April 2014 |author=Brown, Mark}}</ref> In December 2018, a portrait of Lady Selina Meade (1797–1872), who married the Count of [[Clam-Martinic]], painted by Lawrence in Vienna in 1819, sold for £2.29 million at auction, a record for the artist.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=6182772|title=Old Masters Evening Sale |date=6 December 2018 |publisher=Christie's |access-date=14 February 2020 }}</ref>