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 the 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 Lawrence’s studio on his death. Fortunately this double portrait was so fully resolved that 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’.
Given by the sitters to the artist Charles Tattershall Dodd, in the 1840's; The Execution of C.T. Dodd: Christie's, 10 July 1897, lot 87 (2,200gns to Colnaghi); Max Michaelis and by descent
London, New Grosvenor Gallery, Second National Loan Exhibition, 1913, no. 115
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.