Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A.

(Bristol 1769-1830 London)

Portrait of Samuel Jackson Pratt,

Footnotes

Provenance
The late Sir Richard Phillips Sale, Christie's, London, 9 July 1886, lot 53
Art Market, London, 1920s
Mr and Mrs W. K. Grace Aitken, South Carolina
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 10 July 1985, lot 64
Private Collection, UK

Exhibited
P & D Colnaghi & Co. Ltd, The British Face, London, 1986, no. 53

Literature
Lord R. Gower, Sir Thomas Lawrence, London, 1900, p. 155
Sir W. Armstrong, Lawrence, London, 1913, p. 159
K. Garlick, A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Walpole Society, vol. XXXIX, 1964, p. 164.
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, p. 255, no. 662, ill.

Engraved
In stipple by Caroline Watson, 1805

Born into a brewing family of St Ives in Huntingdonshire, Samuel Pratt (1749-1814) was ordained as a young man in the English church; a career which he abandoned not long after eloping with a 'pretty boarding school miss' named Charlotte. Not much is known of his wife but her maiden name was perhaps Melmoth, the pseudonym which Pratt later adopted for his acting and writing ventures. Under the name of Courtney Melmoth, Pratt trod the boards throughout the British Isles, including the Covent Garden theatre in 1774 and 1775, although he met with little success. After this he largely abandoned his stage career and took up writing. His publications varied enormously with Pratt writing on subjects ranging from landscape poetry to stage farces and humanitarian subjects. He died in Birmingham in October 1814 after falling from his horse earlier that year.