Portrait de Sir George Beaumont

1798

Death of Maria Siddons and her sister’s promise

Maria Siddons, daughter of the actress Sarah Siddons, dies: Lawrence had loved her sister Sally first, then Maria, and after breaking with Maria had turned to Sally again. On her deathbed Maria extracts a promise from her sister never to marry him; Sally keeps it, refuses to see Lawrence again and dies in 1803, while he never marries, staying on friendly terms with their mother and painting several portraits of her.

1800s

A witness in the “Delicate Investigation” into the Princess

The King commissions portraits of his daughter-in-law Caroline, the estranged wife of the Prince of Wales, and of his granddaughter Charlotte; while painting them Lawrence stays at Montagu House, the princess’s residence in Blackheath, and becomes implicated in the “delicate investigation” into Caroline’s morals. He swears an affidavit that although he had sometimes been alone with her the door was never locked or bolted, and, expertly defended by Spencer Perceval, he is exonerated.

1810

The patronage of the Prince Regent

Acquires the generous patronage of the Prince Regent: they met through a sitter, Lord Charles Stewart, whom Lawrence painted in Hussar uniform. The prince commissions portraits of himself and of the allied leaders — Wellington, Blücher and Count Platov, who sit for Lawrence at his new house at 65 Russell Square — and by 1811, when the prince became regent, Lawrence is acknowledged as the country’s foremost portrait painter.

22 April 1815

Knighted ahead of a trip abroad

The Prince Regent, who plans to send him abroad to paint foreign royalty and leaders, first grants him a knighthood. Napoleon’s return from Elba puts the plans on hold, but Lawrence does visit Paris, where his friend Lord Charles Stewart is ambassador, and sees the art Napoleon had looted from Italy, including Raphael’s Transfiguration — the painting whose copy had earned him a silver-gilt palette as a boy.

1818

To the continent to paint the monarchs for the Waterloo Chamber

At last makes his postponed trip to the continent: first at Aachen, then in Vienna, he paints the allied monarchs and leaders for what will become the Waterloo Chamber series at Windsor Castle — his sitters include Alexander I of Russia, Francis I of Austria, Frederick William III of Prussia and the young Napoleon II. He will stay in Europe until 1820.

30 March 1820

Back in London and elected President the same evening

Arriving back in London, he finds that the president of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West, has died, and that very evening he is voted the new president; he will hold the post until his death ten years later.