Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. (1769-1830)

Sir Thomas Lawrence had a reputation as a child prodigy by the age of ten. Sir Joshua Reynolds is recorded as having pronounced him 'the most promising genius he had ever met' (see K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, London, 1954). Lawrence's father was the landlord of the Black Bear in Devizies, a popular inn with travelling gentry. The young Lawrence would sketch the many guests, and this is where the present drawings are believed to have been executed.

Dr Kenneth Garlick has confirmed the attribution of these drawings and has suggested that, despite the inscription, they may have been executed even earlier than 1783.