Portrait of Charlotte and Sarah Carteret-Hardy
Thomas Lawrence (British, 1769–1830)
1801
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 161 x 135 x 11 cm (63 3/8 x 53 1/8 x 4 5/16 in.); Unframed: 129 x 103 cm (50 13/16 x 40 9/16 in.)
- Culture
- England, early 19th Century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Bequest of John L. Severance
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Charlotte (left) and Sarah were 19 and 21, respectively, when this portrait was painted on the occasion of Sarah’s marriage to the topographer Daniel Lysons. The sisters wear fashionable gowns and jewelry, but their affectionate posture conveys a sisterly tenderness that transcends glamour. There was a seemingly insatiable demand for Thomas Lawrence’s portraits representing stylish English society, but he was notoriously slow working. Although this picture was begun in 1801, it still was not finished in 1806 when a friend noted its presence in the artist’s studio.
