Copy after Thomas Lawrence
The story
Richard Evans spent six years living in Thomas Lawrence's London house as his pupil and assistant. He painted drapery and backgrounds for him and made replicas of his portraits, above all of members of the royal family. When Lawrence died in 1830 and left a studio full of unfinished canvases, Evans completed or copied several portraits of George IV for the executors.
Copy after Thomas Lawrence is the label a museum uses for a painting that repeats one of his compositions in another hand, usually a hand that can no longer be named. Such a copy may come from his studio, like Evans's replicas, or from a painter working years later who never met him, and the label does not say which.
The poet Thomas Campbell wrote that nobody knew more about Lawrence than Evans.
