Portrait of David Lyon
by LAWRENCE, Sir Thomas, Oil on canvas, 217 x 132 cm
This portrait dates from the artist’s late period and looks back to the English portrait tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries, when England was a leading centre for the genre. The use of a landscape background was characteristic of the English school. At the same time, the portrait also falls within the Romantic tradition in the elegant bearing of the sitter and in his expression, at once haughty and melancholy, while the clothing, pose and long untidy hair are all typical of the 19th-century dandy.