Miss Laura Dorothea Ross (Mrs Francis Robertson)

Laura Dorothea Ross, painted by Lawrence around 1801 and subsequently identified as Mrs Francis Robertson after her marriage, represents the large-format female portraiture (147.3 by 239.7 centimetres) that Lawrence deployed for sitters of sufficient wealth and social standing to merit full-length treatment. Now in the National Gallery, the portrait demonstrates the Regency convention of the standing female figure in landscape setting or architectural context — a format that descended from Van Dyck through Reynolds and Gainsborough to Lawrence, each generation adapting the formula to contemporary notions of feminine beauty and social grace. Laura Ross belonged to the Scottish gentry, her family's connection to Robertson through marriage placing her in the network of Edinburgh and Lowland society that produced a disproportionate share of the professional and commercial talent enriching London in the early nineteenth century. Lawrence's treatment at twenty-nine reflects his fully consolidated mature style: the white dress handling that became his signature female portrait element, the direct gaze that distinguished his women from the more downcast convention of the previous generation, and the atmospheric landscape setting that gave compositional depth without distracting from the figure's primacy.

Soft, diffused lighting bathes the sitter in a warm glow that typifies Lawrence's approach to female portraiture. The handling is exceptionally refined, with transparent glazes in the shadows and impasto highlights on the dress and face creating a luminous, almost porcelain-like surface.