SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A. (BRISTOL 1769-1830 LONDON)

This portrait was first recorded in 1908, when it was lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by Mrs. Mary Louise Porter, and at that time the sitter was listed as Master Gregory Shaw. Porter and her husband, Mr. Benjamin Curtis Porter were members of New York society and were listed on Ward McAllister's famed inventory of the 'Four Hundred' best families in New York. Benjamin Porter was himself a portraitist and was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1880. He painted portraits of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Maude Howe Elliott, the socialite and women's suffrage activist, Alva Belmont, and chairman and president of the New York Central, Cornelius Vanderbilt II.