Princess Lieven

Princess Dorothea Lieven, wife of the Russian ambassador Prince Christoph von Lieven and the most influential political hostess in Regency and early Victorian London, appears in Lawrence's 1816 portrait at the moment when her salon at the Russian Embassy in Harley Street was becoming the indispensable intersection of European diplomacy and British political life. Lawrence's depiction of her now in the National Gallery captures a woman whom Castlereagh, Wellington, Palmerston, Metternich, and eventually Grey and Melbourne all cultivated as a source of both intelligence and influence — her access to the Russian court's inner counsels gave her information that no British politician could afford to ignore. Princess Lieven's letters, running to thousands in published editions, constitute one of the most vivid accounts of European political society from the Congress of Vienna to the 1848 revolutions, and her circle's informal power — exercised through dinner-table conversation, carefully placed rumor, and selective intimacy with the powerful — exemplifies the diplomatically active society wife as a distinct political actor in the pre-democratic European order. Lawrence's small portrait (38.4 by 46 centimetres) suits the intimate intelligence of its subject.

Lawrence renders the princess with a cool, aristocratic elegance, using silvery tones and restrained color to convey her famously sharp personality. The composition is pared down, with minimal accessories, letting the face and posture carry the portrait's meaning.