The Red Boy

The Red Boy, originally titled Master Lambton, is an 1825 portrait by Thomas Lawrence of Charles William Lambton, the elder son of John Lambton, later Earl of Durham. His father commissioned it for 600 guineas, and the seven-year-old boy stands poised and calm against a dark, brownish background. The painting's best-known feature is the colour of the boy's clothes: a contemporary writer reported that Lawrence first painted them yellow, and it was the father who pressed for the change to the crimson that gave the work its popular name. After the deaths of the third and fourth earls in 1928 and 1929, the family faced heavy death duties, and the painting was offered at auction in 1932 but went unsold. Its reputation grew through exhibitions in Newcastle and at the Bowes Museum, and it was later acquired by the National Gallery, London, an acquisition announced in July 2021.

Painter

Thomas Lawrence

Date

1825

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

140 × 111 cm

Museum

National Gallery, London

Genre

portrait

Depicts

Charles Lambton

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