Portrait of William Fairlie, half-length, in a black coat, against a red curtain; and Portrait of John Fairlie, half-length, in a black coat, beside a red curtain

The sitters were the eldest sons of William Fairlie and his wife Margaret (see lots 29 and 30). William Fairlie (1798-1822), of whom little is known, died young, unmarried. His brother John (1799-1885), was born in Calcutta and married first Isabel Elderton, by whom he had a son, Herbert James, and secondly, Louisa (d. 1843), daughter of Captain John Home Purves and his wife Ellen Power (sister of Lady Blessington, whom Lawrence painted, K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, no.287), by whom he had five children. He married, thirdly, Mary, daughter of William Parr Isaacson of Newmarket, by whom he also had children.