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Creator:
Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1769–1830
Title:
Portrait of William Lock II of Norbury Park, Surrey
Additional Title(s):

Portrait of William Lock II (1767-1847) of Norbury Park, Surrey

William Lock the Younger
Date:
ca. 1800
Materials & Techniques:
Oiled charcoal and blue-gray ground on canvas
Dimensions:
Frame: 34 1/2 x 28 x 3 1/4 inches (87.6 x 71.1 x 8.3 cm), Sheet: 26 x 19 inches (66 x 48.3 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund and Friends of British Art Fund
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1994.11
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
coat | costume | gaze | long hair | man | portrait | posing | shirt | solemn
Associated People:
Lock, William, the younger (1767–1847), artist
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:4253
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This is one of the earliest chalk-on-canvas portraits that Lawrence completed, and it represents his friend and fellow artist William Lock the Younger. It is one of a pair with a double portrait of Lock’s father, William senior, and his sister, Amelia, which is in a private collection. Lock’s own work was influenced by the grace and fluidity of classical art, and intensive study of sculptures and casts may have inspired Lawrence to draw this stark yet sensual portrait of his friend. The lack of color and the use of chalk on canvas mark this portrait as experimental. Lawrence would return to this technique and perfect it during his later travels in Europe.

Cassandra Albinson

Cassandra Albinson, Thomas Lawrence, Regency power & brilliance, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2010, pp. 130, No. 19


The virtuoso portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence was an extremely talented draftsman, despite his lack of formal training, and he frequently drew for pleasure as an antidote to the pressures and tedium of his professional life. It has been suggested that Lawrence's sensitive portrait of the younger William Lock may be a study for an untraced portrait of the sitter exhibited as the royal Academy in 1791. Lock's attire and hairstyle indicate a later dating however, and Lawrence did not usually make preliminary drawings for his paintings, preferring to prepare them by drawing directly on the canvas with chalk.
This technique clearly fascinated his sitters. Joseph Farington recorded in his diary for 7 May 1794: "This morning I sat to Lawrence when He drew in my portrait with black chalk on the Canvass, which employed him near 2 hours. He did not use colour today. - This is his mode of beginning," and Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower recalled: "what struck me most…was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits before any colour was put on." Lawrence also made a number of chalk portraits on canvas which he seems to have regarded as drawings in their own right, and no. 13 almost certainly falls into this category. Moreover, the portrait was owned by Lock, which implies that Lawrence would have considered it a finished work.
The sitter was the son of the connoisseur William Lock (1732-1810), was one of Lawrence's first sitter and a close friend of the artist. The younger Lock (1767-1847) was a keen patron of the arts and an aspiring artist, but after viewing Rome he lost faith in his talent and gave up painting, though he continued to draw.

Gillian Forrester

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 28 cat. no. 13

Thomas Lawrence - Regency, Power and Brilliance (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-02-24 - 2011-06-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Seeing Double : Portraits, Copies and Exhibitions in 1820s London (Yale Center for British Art, 2010-06-24 - 2010-09-19) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Cassandra Albinson, Thomas Lawrence, Regency power & brilliance , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2010, pp. 130,..., No. 19, NJ18 L42 T56 2010 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Christie's sale catalogue : British drawings and watercolours : 17 November 1992, Christie's, 1992, pp. 28-29, lot 28, Auction Catalogues (YCBA)

Dr. Kenneth Garlick, A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Volume of the Walpole Society, v. 39, Walpole Society, 1962-1964, p. 235, N12 W35 A1 39 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Dr. Kenneth Garlick, Lawrence's portraits of the Locks, the Angersteins and the Boucherettes, Burlington Magazine, vol. 110, 1968, p. 670, fig. 31, N1 .B87 Oversize YCBA [ORBIS]

Susan Owens, The art of drawing : British masters and methods since 1600, V&A Publishing, London, 2013, pp. 60,. 61, fig. 41, NC228 .O92 2013 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Royal Academy of Arts, Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA, 1769-1830 : An exhibition of paintings and drawings . . ., London, 1961, pp. 33-34, no. 71, Fiche B207 YCBA [ORBIS]

Leslie M. Scattone, New Information on Lawrence's ' Portrait of Joseph Henry ', Burlington Magazine, vol. 155, no. 1321, April 2013, pp. 247, 249, fig. 40, N1 B87 (LC)+ OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Peter Wagner, The ruin and the sketch in the eighteenth century, vol. 2, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier, 2008, p. 207, fig. 6, N6766 .R75 2008 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 28, no. 13, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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