Portrait of Miss Julia Peel (Primary Title)
Sir Thomas Lawrence, English, 1769-1830 (Artist)
This enchanting representation of Julia Peel (1821–1893) at age five displays the fluency with conventions of grand portraiture that made Lawrence the most sought-after English portraitist of the early 19th century. Like the Baroque-era portraits by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), Lawrence’s likenesses blatantly embellish reality to flatter his sitters. Here, the red curtain adds an incongruous sense of drama to the image, while the interplay of carefully chosen colors enhances the young girl’s rosy aspect and costume. The sitter was the daughter of future Prime Minister Robert Peel, 2nd baronet (1788–1850), who was one of Lawrence’s most illustrious and frequent patrons. To convey her acceptance of familial standards of aristocratic behavior, the artist depicted her gently caressing a spaniel. Along with this canine prop, he borrowed her casual pose and woodland surroundings from a popular 18th-century portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) to add a further dimension of sentimentality to the image. The landscape suggested by vigorous brushwork in the distant background echoes the innovative techniques of early Romantic painters.
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