Focus on this artwork and discuss the Early history.
The portrait of seven year old Charles William Lambton was painted for the subject's father by Sir Thomas Lawrence for the price of 600 guineas (about £46,000/$57,000 in 2014) and was completed in 1825.William T. Whitley's Art of England 1821–1837 (1930) states a contemporary writer in News of Literature and Fashion reported that Lawrence had originally painted the boy's clothes in yellow, despite the latter's father being called the "yellow dandy".  John Lambton tormented Lawrence "on the score of the unfitness of the colour, until he got it blotted out by the crimson." Whitley also mentions that when the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825, the Hanging Committee of George Jones, Alfred Edward Chalon and Thomas Phillips chose the painting to be hung high up in the School of Painting, away from the Great Room. Lambton believed this to be due to him being a Whig and declared he would never buy another picture from a Royal Academician. However, D. E. Williams's The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Kt. published in 1831 claims that the original yellow "produced an unpleasant monotony with the browns of the gravel and rocks forming the background." The painting later attracted much praise when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1827.
George Jones Paris Salon dandy Royal Academy John Lambton Alfred Edward Chalon Whig Thomas Lawrence guineas Thomas Phillips Sir Thomas Lawrence