- Artist
- Sir Thomas Lawrence 1769–1830
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 2403 × 1480 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the Patrons of British Art through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1988
- Reference
- T05466
Technique and condition
The support is plain woven, linen canvas of medium weight, with a lean, oil-bound, off-white priming, probably applied by an artists' colourman.
The paint is oil, probably enriched in the dark passages with resins or perhaps bitumen. It was all built up rapidly in scumbles and glazes, with thick impasto used in the modelling of the foliage, the white areas of the costume, the tassel and the carpet (see raking-light photograph). Many areas of the paintings have developed shrinkage-cracks as a result of the original techniques: slow drying layers laid on top of faster drying layers usually develop cracks like this. The irregular browning of the face is a result of the fugitive pigment (probably a translucent red lake) fading in light, leaving us with the oil or oleo-resinous medium in which it was bound. The thick body-paint beneath it has remained unfaded.
When the painting was glue lined some time since the late nineteenth century, the heat and pressure of the iron caused some compression of the impasto. The varnish is natural resin and has yellowed very slightly.
Rica Jones
1996
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