Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.
(Bristol 1769 – London 1830)

Portrait of Sir Samuel Shepherd (1760 - 1830)

oil on canvas

50 1/2"×40 1/2" (128.2 cm×102.9 cm)

PROVENANCE:
By decent in the family of Sir Samuel Shepherd to Professor Alan Clutton-Brock, Chastleton House, 1964; Alan Clutton – Brock sale, Sotheby’s, London, July 15, 1964, lot 125, where purchased byNewhouse Galleries, New York who sold it to a Private Collection, New York who sold it atSotheby’s, New York, June 3, 1988, lot 104, for $85,250; Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, April 13, 1994, (cover illustration), lot 75 for £100,500 where purchased by Private Collector until the present time.

LITERATURE

Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, F.S.A., Sir Thomas Lawrence, Goupil & Co., London, 1900, p. 158.

Sir Walter Armstrong, Lawrence, Meuthuen & Co. Ltd. London, 1913, p. 162. Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1954, p. 57 (as untraced).

Kenneth Garlick, “A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence”, The Walpole Society, XXXIX, 1964, p. 174.

Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, New York University Press, New York, 1989, p. 263, illustrated (as untraced).

ENGRAVED: Mezzotint by J. Richardson Jackson, 1846 (executed for the 50 plates of “Engravings from the Choicest Works of Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.”, published at intervals between 1832 – 1845 by Henry Graves & Co.)

NOTE: Ellis Waterhouse described Lawrence’s portraits of the 1790’s as having “a bravura and vivacity, with a strong feeling for character, which mark them as the quintessential statement of that age”.{1} 1 It is a testimonial borne out by Sir Samuel Shepherd’s portrait executed circa 1795. A lawyer and politician, Shepherd was a man noted for veracity and humility by his contemporaries.

Born on April 6, 1760, Shepherd was the son of a London jeweler. His legal career began in 1776 when he entered the Inner Temple and was apprenticed to Sergeant Charles Runnington. He was called to the bar in 1781. In June of 1812 the Prince of Wales made Shepherd his Solicitor-General, followed shortly thereafter by his appointment of Solicitor-General to the Crown. He was knighted on May 11, 1814 and made Attorney-General in the spring of 1817. From 1814-1817, he was a member of Parliament for Dorchester. He held the post of Chief Baron of the Court of the Exchequer in Scotland from 1819-1830. He was raised to the Privy Council in 1819.{2}

Shepherd was also an amateur poet and a friend of the actor David Garrick. During his time as Chief Baron of Scotland, he became a close friend of Sir Walter Scott, as well as a popular figure in Edinburgh society. In 1783 he married a Miss White. They had a son named Henry John Shepherd who also became a lawyer. He retired from public life in 1830 and moved to a cottage at Streatley in Berkshire. He died in 1840 and a monument was erected in Streatley in his honor.{3}

{1} Ellis Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters, Baron Publishing, Suffolk, p. 220

{2} Dictionary of National Biography, volume XVIII, p. 56

{3} Ibid, 56.

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