Detail of The Calmady Children by Lawrence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: The Calmady Children (Emily, 1818–?1906, and Laura Anne, 1820–1894)

Artist: Sir Thomas Lawrence (British, Bristol 1769–1830 London)

Date: 1823

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 30 7/8 x 30 1/8 in. (78.4 x 76.5 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900

Accession Number: 25.110.1

Lawrence’s portrait of Emily and Laura Anne Calmady embodies the admiration for the unrestrained exuberance of childhood that played a critical role in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European culture. Lawrence once described the portrait, which was shown at the Royal Academy and engraved under the title Nature—as "my best picture . . . one of the few I should wish hereafter to be known by."

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436850