Excerpt from Sir Thomas Lawrence's Cabinet of Gems: With Biographical and Descriptive Memorials The father of Sir Thomas Lawrence seems to have united, to some glaring errors and weaknesses of personal character, many estimable and praiseworthy qualities, which in a great measure redeemed his venial faults. The bane of his early career, however, was evidently that( so called) personal vanity, which, shewing itself under another and more noble form in his gifted son, cast a glory round that name which at first it seemed destined to consign prematurely'to poverty and disgrace. It was, however, chiefly to his mother that Sir Thomas owed the finer qualities of his genius and intellect. But of this hereafter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) was the most gifted and successful British portrait painter in the generation following Gainsborough and Reynolds, and his pre-eminence was publicly confirmed when he was elected President of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1820 ... This book is the first sustained study of the work of Lawrence to be published for many years ..."--Inside front cover jacket.

Each number is devoted to one artist and includes bibliography of the artist.