Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain03cham).pdf/61

 and the portraits of John Kemble as Rolla, Cato, Hamlet, and Coriolanus. At the height of his reputation he received one hundred guineas for a head, and four hundred for a full-length portrait. At this rate per portrait, and with £1,000 a year to draw upon for travelling expenses, Sir Thomas was sent to the Continent by George IV., soon after the fall of Napoleon, to paint the allied sovereigns, then assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle; to Rome to paint Pius VII. and Cardinal Gonsalvi (1819), two of his finest works, and to Vienna to paint Prince Schwartzenberg and other Austrian generals. He had been knighted by the king in 1815, and five years later, after his return to England, he was elected president of the Royal Academy. He was a member of the Academy of St. Luke, Rome, and of many other foreign academies, and in 1825 was made a chevalier of the L. of Honour. He painted some large historical subjects, among which his Satan calling his Legions was placed by himself above all his other works. Sir Thomas was the ideal of a fashionable portrait painter, thanks to his facile use of colour, the superficial elegance of his style, and his skill in the art of flattering the many distinguished people whose portraits he painted. He contributed, from 1787 to 1830 inclusive, 311 pictures to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. After his death, in the latter year, a selection of 91 of his works was exhibited at the British Institution. Among his best works are: Portraits of Julius Angerstein, A Lady, Benjamin West, Mrs. Siddons (2), Dowager Countess of Darnley, John Fawcett—Comedian, Child with a Kid, Hamlet with Yorick's Skull, National Gallery, London; Pius VII., Cardinal Gonsalvi, Emperor Francis II. of Austria, George IV., Count Nesselrode, Hetman Platoff, Duke of Wellington, Sir Walter Scott, and others, Windsor Castle; Master Lambton, Earl of Durham; Lady Peel, Sir Robert Peel, Bart.; Nature—Children of C. B. Calmady, Vincent P. Calmady, Esq.; Eliza Farren—Countess of Derby, Countess of Wilton, Wilton House; Lady Gower and Child, Stafford House; Lord Dover, Lady Dover and Son, Dover House; Lady Blessington, Sir Richard Wallace, Bart.; Artist's Portrait, Gypsy Girl, Satan calling his Legions, Royal Academy; Thomas Campbell, Sir J. Mackintosh, National Portrait Gallery, London; Kemble as Coriolanus, Earl of Yarborough.—Williams, Life (London, 1831); Cunningham; Redgrave; F. de Conches, 349; Ch. Blanc, École anglaise; Art Journal (1859), 325; Sandby, ii. 21.

LAWRIE, ALEXANDER, born in New York in 1828. Landscape and portrait painter, pupil of the National Academy, New York, and of the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia; studied in Paris under Picot, in Düsseldorf under Leutze, and painted in Florence. Has worked in Philadelphia and New York; studio in the latter place. Elected an A.N.A. in 1866. Works: Autumn in the Hudson Highlands (1869); Valley in the Adirondacks (1870); Monk playing Violoncello (1876). Portraits: General Z. Tower, Military Academy, West Point; Judge Sutherland, New York Bar Association; Colonel J. Porter; General J. F. Reynolds.

LAWSON, CECIL GORDON, born at Wellington, Shropshire, Dec. 3, 1851, died in London, June 10, 1882. Landscape painter, son and pupil of William Lawson, portrait painter; also studied under his brother, Wilfrid Lawson, and was strongly influenced by works of Gainsborough. Exhibited his Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, at Royal Academy in 1870, but did not win much reputation until 1878, when his Minister's Garden, now in the Manchester Gallery, and other works were exhibited at Grosvenor Gallery. After this he had an assured place in English landscape art, but his career was cut short by death.