Double Portrait of the Fullerton Sisters, seated full-length, in white dresses, a red curtain to the left, unfinished

Details

Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. (1769-1830)
Double Portrait of the Fullerton Sisters, seated full-length, in white dresses, a red curtain to the left, unfinished
oil on canvas
61 x 57½in. (155 x 146cm.)

Provenance

Given by the sitters to the artist Charles Tattershall Dodd, in the 1840s.
The Executors of C.T. Dodd; Christie's, 10 July 1897, lot 86 (2200gns. to Colnaghi).
Max Michaelis and by descent.

Literature

Sir W. Armstrong, Lawrence, London, 1913, p. 133.
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, London, 1954, p. 38.
K. Garlick, A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Walpole Society, XXXIX, 1962-4, p. 84.
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, no. 317, illus.

Exhibited

London, New Grosvenor Gallery, Second National Loan Exhibition, 1913, no. 115.

Lot Essay

This picture, begun in 1825, is a bravura performance by the artist. President of the Royal Academy since 1820, Lawrence's work of this period exudes a confidence in composition and execution which reflects his position as an almost unrivalled master of the Regency portrait. In the intimacy of the present picture, we also see demonstrated the ease and assurance with which the artist composed his group portraits. It is thought that approximately a hundred and fifty pictures were left unfinished in the artist's studio on his death. Fortunately this double portrait was so fully resolved the no attempt was made to have it finished by a studio hand.
Little is known of the sitters who are recorded by Lawrence's executor as the niece and daughter of 'Mr Fullerton of Tunbridge Wells'.

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