REYNOLDS’S AND LAWRENCE’S PORTRAITS.
Sir D. Wilkie, in his remarks on Portrait Painting, says:—No representations of female character have equalled in sweetness and beauty the female portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds; yet, a contemporary has remarked, that this was accomplished greatly at the expense of likeness. Hoppner, who was himself distinguished for the beauty with which he endowed the female form, remarked, that even to him it was a matter of surprise that Reynolds could send home portraits with so little resemblance to the originals. This, indeed, in his day, occasioned portraits to be left on his hands, or turned to the wall, which, since the means of comparing resemblances have ceased, have blazed forth in all the splendour of grace and elegance, which the originals would have been envied for had they ever possessed them. I may add to this what is remarked of Sir Thomas Lawrence: his likenesses were celebrated as the most successful of his time; yet, no likenesses exalted so much or refined more upon the originals. He wished to seize the expression, rather than copy the features. His attainment of likeness was most laborious: one distinguished person, who favoured him with forty sittings for his head alone, declared he was the slowest painter he had ever sat to, and he had sat to many.
This distinguished person, (says Burnet, in his Practical Essays,) I believe, was Sir Walter Scott. The picture was painted for his Majesty, and Lawrence was most anxious to make the picture the best of any painted from so celebrated a character. At other times, however, Sir Thomas was as dexterous with his pencil as any artist. I remember him mentioning that he painted the portrait of Curran, the celebrated Irish barrister, in one day; he came in the morning, remained to dinner, and left at dusk; or, as Lawrence expressed it, quoting his favourite author,
“From morn till noon,
From noon to dewy eve.”