Art Collections Online

Thomas Williams (1737-1802)

LAWRENCE, Sir Thomas (1769 - 1830)

Media: oil on canvas

Size: 127.5 x 102.1 cm

Acquired: 1987; Purchase

Accession Number: NMW A 451

Thomas Williams (1737-1802) was from 1785 chief agent of the Mynydd Parys copper mines near Amlwch. He also established numerous smelting works and a distribution network of shipping. A leading figure in the early Industrial Revolution, in 1790 he became MP for Great Marlow. This portrait depicts him at the height of his power during the 1790s and hung at his country seat in Berkshire. Sir Thomas Lawrence was a child prodigy who rapidly established himself as the leading portrait painter of the Regency and the reign of George IV.

Comments - (2)

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Richard J. Collins

10 February 2015, 14:59

An interesting point to mention. Many years ago I had the pleasure of selling this work to the National Gallery of Wales. If you take a close look at the buttons on Mr. Williams vest you will see that this painting is signed by Lawrence with the monogram TL which is interlocked on a button on the sitter's vest.
Lawrence did this portrait when he was 19 years of age. VERY few of Lawrence's portraits are signed. Very few-
-R.Collins

Professor Geoff Coyle

17 July 2009, 16:13

This is a remakable contrast with paintings by Julius Caesar Ibbetson of the workers at Mynnyd Parys who made the Williams fortune.

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