Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.

Probably the sitter's sister, Sarah Burney, and thence by descent in the Burney family;

Thence by descent until sold, London, Christie's, 26 June 1925, lot 41, for 48 Guineas to Nicholson;

With A.L. Nicholson, London;

Private collection, U.S.A.

K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence: A complete catalogue of the oil paintings, Oxford 1989, p. 260, cat. no. 693.¹

^ENGRAVED

John Henry Robinson, 1836.

Samuel Rose was a fascinating figure whose life was cut short by illness while he was still in his thirties. Of Scottish descent, he was educated at his father’s school in Kew and later at Glasgow University. He entered as a law student at Lincoln’s Inn in 1786 and was called to the bar in 1796. His most famous case was the defence of the poet William Blake against a charge of high treason in January of 1804. Rose won this case after a vigorous cross-questioning of Blake’s accusers, two soldiers who claimed to have heard the poet blaspheming against the King. Rose was taken ill with a severe cold during the course of the trial, but he nevertheless managed to see it through to a successful conclusion. He never recovered from his illness, however, and he died of consumption at the end of 1804.

Lawrence painted two versions of this portrait, which have previously been confused. In his 1989 catalogue raisonné Kenneth Garlick assumed there was only one portrait and consequently conflated the provenances. In the other version, Rose appears with wispier hair, a slightly fuller face and a slightly differing treatment to his cravat. The early provenance of that picture is unknown, but it was offered at Sotheby’s in 1961, as by John Hoppner, then bought there by Agnews, reattributed to Lawrence, lent to the Royal Academy’s 1961 exhibition Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A. and subsequently sold. It reappeared at Christie’s in 2010, erroneously listing the early provenance published in Garlick which in fact relates to the present portrait.²

The present version was the one which sold at Christie’s in 1925 and bought by the dealer Nicholson. Christie’s in-house catalogue for that sale further shows it to have been consigned by the dealer Leggatt on behalf of a Miss Burney. Rose's sister Sarah married Charles Burney, a classical scholar and brother of the novelist and diarist Fanny, therefore the portrait must have passed through the family until the 1925 sale. Thus the Burney family - Christie’s - Nicholson part of Garlick’s provenance belongs properly to this version, which then found its way to the United States.

¹ Garlick conflates the provenance of both versions in this catalogue entry. He reproduces the version which sold at Christie's in 2010.

² https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-sir-thomas-lawrence-pra-bristol-1769-1840-london-5391458/