Mrs Littleton (1789–1846)

Mrs Littleton, painted by Lawrence around 1822 and at the Laing Art Gallery, was Hyacinthe Mary Wellesley — the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess Wellesley, Arthur Wellesley's elder brother, making her the niece of the Duke of Wellington himself. Her marriage to Edward Littleton, who would become 1st Baron Hatherton and serve as Chief Secretary for Ireland, placed her at the center of Regency political life through both her Wellesley family connections and her husband's political career. Lawrence's female portraits of the 1820s show his mature Romantic style at its most accomplished: the atmospheric dissolution of the dress into pure suggestion of light and color, the luminous complexion rendered in thin transparent glazes, and the psychological directness that gave each sitter a specific presence rather than a generalized ideal. The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle preserves this portrait within a regional collection that reflects the national distribution of Lawrence's work through the art market; the portrait's quality places it among his most successful female commissions from the final decade of his career.

Lawrence bestows his characteristic warmth and elegance on the young society woman, with luminous skin tones and a graceful arrangement of hair and costume. The brushwork is fluid and assured, the overall impression one of youthful refinement captured at the height of fashionable beauty.