Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A. 1769-1830

Estimate

25,000 - 35,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A.
Portrait of Elizabeth Williams of Gwersylt Park, Denbighshire
oil on canvas, in a carved wood frame

half length, wearing a cream dress and a brown wrap with a red necklace

Provenance

By family descent to Major W.G. Townsend Currie, his sale, Christie's, 3rd June 1932, lot 64, bt. Buttery;

The Estate of Lilian S. Whitmarsh, sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 7th-8th April 1961, lot 294

Exhibited

Royal Academy, 1804, no.25

Literature

Sir Walter Armstrong, Lawrence, 1913, p.171;

Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1954, p.199;

Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, A Complete Catalogue of Oil Paintings, 1989, no.825a

Catalogue Note

The sitter was the daughter of William Currie, of Boughton Hall, near Chester. On 24th October 1803 she married John Williams, son of Thomas Williams and his wife Catherine Lloyd. Thomas Williams (1737-1802), her father-in-law, was one of the most important industrialists in Wales in the eighteenth century, described by Matthew Boulton as 'the despotic sovereign of the copper trade'. His portrait by Lawrence is in the National Museum of Wales. John Williams was M.P. for New Windsor 1802-1804, and inherited a substantial fortune on the death of his father in 1802.

They lived at Gwersylt Park near Wrexham in North Wales, a substantial mansion, remodelled in c.1800 in the neo-classical style by Wyatt.