King George IV

King George IV (1762-1830), Regent 1811-19; Reigned 1820-30.

The Prince Regent first sat to Thomas Lawrence in 1814 when Charles William Vane-Stewart commissioned this portrait. Until then the Prince had favoured other artists, as Lawrence was associated with Queen Caroline. The artist turned the 300-pound, 53-year-old Prince into an immaculate, wind-swept hero in the field marshal's uniform he so loved. William Hazlitt observed that 'Lawrence has with the magic of his pencil recreated the Prince Regent as a well-fleshed Adonis of thirty-three.'