Portrait of Lord Lynedoch

Lawrence painted Lord Lynedoch around 1817, depicting General Sir Thomas Graham, who had distinguished himself at the Battle of Barrosa (1811) during the Peninsular War and later served as Wellington's second-in-command. Graham was remarkable for beginning his military career at age forty-four, motivated by outrage when French soldiers desecrated his wife's coffin during the Revolutionary Wars. Now at Apsley House, the painting documents one of the most unusual military careers of the Napoleonic era and belongs to the collection of Wellington-related portraits assembled at his London residence.

Lawrence paints the elderly soldier with the weathered dignity of a man who came late to war but distinguished himself through sheer courage and determination. The face shows the marks of campaigning and age, rendered with honest warmth rather than the idealization Lawrence applied to younger, more fashionable sitters.