His colour was never equal to that of Reynolds, but his pictures have faced the time test better; the secret of the iridescent glaze that the first President of the R.A. could lend to a canvas was apparently unknown to Lawrence. On his death nearly one hundred canvases were exhibited at the British Institute, and his popularity may be gauged from the result of the exhibition, which yielded three thousand pounds, the money being given to his nieces. His tastes in art were catholic, and his love of attractive drawings has been referred to. It was said by some that the £20,000 the collection yielded was less by far than it had cost, but this, as far as the writer can ascertain, is conjecture. He had drawings of unequal merit, the best being by Michael Angelo and Raphael, and these went to Oxford University. His Italian journey quickened the best side of Lawrence, and justifies the regret that he was not able to visit Italy as a lad. His instinct for good work was quick and true; he never hesitated for long between the best and the second best, giving the preference to Michael Angelo as soon as he had compared his work in Rome with that of Raphael. In the last years of his life he gave up the creamy white of his earlier canvases for a pure white, taking the hint from the old Venetian masters, by whom he was deeply impressed. He exhibited over three hundred portraits, and painted many that were not for exhibition. To-day he may be seen at his best in Windsor Castle, but London claims some of his successful canvases.
Study and the life of Sir Thomas Lawrence begins and ends on the note of wonder. It is easy to point out his shortcomings, but it is far more difficult to account for his merits when we remember that he started to earn his family’s living before he was seven years old, and received a public recognition at the age of sixteen for work completed two years before. He had no student life in the true sense of the term, no painstaking teacher, only one or two friends to give him hints more or less valuable. His strength lay in accurate draughtsmanship and a wonderfully quick eye for effect, his weakness in the effeminacy of his handling, the indifference to minor details of composition, and the general inferiority of his colour sense to that of his great contemporaries. But from a lad who was self-taught and never ventured to handle colours until he was seventeen, nothing better could be expected, and something not as good might well have been pardoned. Finally, it may be suggested that while Sir Thomas Lawrence will never take equal rank with the greatest of his contemporaries, while Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, and others will take precedence of him, his best work will always command a large measure of genuine admiration. It will not fail to attract the attention of the student and the connoisseur, while his life must be full of interest to those who realise how talents that were not of the highest rank did almost as much for Lawrence as greater gifts did for Velazquez, Rubens, Hans Holbein the younger, and others whose brushes were a powerful aid to diplomacy in days past.