One of Lawrence’s most remarkable male portraits is that of Curran:
under mean and harsh features, a genius of the highest order lay
concealed, like a sweet kernel in a rough husk; and so little of the
true man did Lawrence perceive in his first sittings, that he almost
laid down his palette in despair, in the belief that he could make
nothing but a common or vulgar work. The parting hour came, and with it
the great Irishman burst out in all his strength. He discoursed on art,
on poetry, on Ireland; his eyes flashed, and his colour heightened; and
his rough and swarthy visage seemed, in the sight of the astonished
painter, to come fully within his own notions of manly beauty. “I never
saw you till now,” said the artist, in his softest tone of voice; “you
have sat to me in a mask; do give me a sitting of Curran, the orator.”
Curran complied, and a fine portrait, with genius on its brow, was the
consequence.
Allan Cunningham, whose Memoir of Lawrence we quote, states how he
gradually raised his prices for portraits as he advanced to fame. In
1802, his charge for a three-quarter size was thirty guineas; for a
half-length, sixty guineas; and for a whole-length, one hundred and
twenty guineas. In 1806, the three-quarters rose to fifty guineas; and
the whole length to two hundred. In 1808, he rose the smallest size to
eighty guineas, and the largest to three hundred and twenty guineas; and
in 1810, when the death of Hoppner swept all rivalry out of the way, he
increased the price of the heads to one hundred, and the full-lengths
to four hundred guineas. He knew--none better--that the opulent loved to
possess what was rare, and beyond the means of poorer men to purchase;
and the growing crowds of his sitters told him that his advance in price
had not been ill received.