Portrait of Lord Aberdeen

Lawrence's 1829 portrait of Lord Aberdeen, one of his very last completed works before his death in January 1830, depicts the future Prime Minister at a pivotal moment in his diplomatic career. George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, had attended the Congress of Vienna in 1813-14 as British representative and was deeply shaped by the diplomatic culture of that extraordinary gathering — the last attempt of European monarchies to settle the continent's affairs through collective negotiation rather than bilateral power politics. Aberdeen would go on to serve as Foreign Secretary twice and eventually as Prime Minister (1852-55), when his reluctant entry into the Crimean War against his deepest instincts destroyed his political career and caused him profound personal anguish. Lawrence depicts him at forty-five, the Romantic sensitivity visible in the features suggesting the emotional depth that would make him both a skilled diplomat and, in the end, a man too morally scrupulous for the brutal requirements of wartime leadership. The portrait was completed at the very end of Lawrence's life, and its quality suggests that his technical powers, unlike his health, remained undimmed to the end.

Lawrence's portrait captures Aberdeen's scholarly, thoughtful personality with characteristic warmth. The restrained composition and subdued palette suit the sitter's reserved, intellectual temperament.