Portrait of Charlotte and Sarah Carteret-Hardy (1801): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Charlotte and Sarah Carteret-Hardy (1801) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Thomas Lawrence (British, 1769–1830).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Charlotte and Sarah Carteret-Hardy
• Date: 1801
• Creator attribution: Thomas Lawrence (British, 1769–1830)
• Culture: England, early 19th Century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• 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.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.642

A detail from the museum

Lawrence was a child prodigy and largely self-taught. At the early age of 10, he made accomplished portraits in crayon.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• John Long Severance Art Collection Photographs: Furniture, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Catalogue of the John L. Severance Collection: Bequest of John L. Severance, 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1942.
• Francis, Henry. "Department of Paintings." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 9 (November 1942): 132-136

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.