Der rote Knabe

The boy in red was Charles William Lambton, seven years old, son of a wealthy County Durham politician who paid Lawrence 600 guineas for the portrait in 1825, a large sum for a picture of a child. Lawrence sat him on a rocky ledge above a moonlit sea, lost in thought, dressed in the soft red velvet skeleton suit that fashionable families had adopted for boys around 1800 because it let them move and play. Critics at the Royal Academy thought it rivalled the great portraitist Reynolds. The picture kept its hold on the public for well over a century, and in 1967 it became the first painting ever reproduced on a British postage stamp. Charles himself did not grow up. He died of tuberculosis at 13.