Group portrait of Mrs John Lucas and her two eldest sons, three-quarter-length, the former, seated, in a pink dress and black shawl, holding a book, one child seated on her lap, in an interior

Lucas, a London portrait painter, first studied mezzotint engraving under S.W. Reynolds and at the close of his apprenticeship set up as a portrait painter, establishing an enormously successful practise. He was a member of the Clipstone Street Academy where he worked with artists such as William Etty, R.A. (1787-1849). His sitters included the Prince Consort, who sat for him four times, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Wellington, who sat for him eight times, Lord and Lady Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister. He also painted a large portrait group of Robert Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and other engineers consulting over the completion of the Menai Bridge. He married Miss Milborough Morgan in 1836 and they had three sons and two daughters. John Templeton Lucas (1836-1880) also practised as an artist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and at the British Institution from 1859 to 1876. William Lucas (1840-1895) became a watercolour artist.