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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Figtree3, post: 440003, member: 33&quot;]Here is what the Met&#039;s website that I linked above says about the work. It also mentions early engravings of it.</p><p><br /></p><p><font size="5"><b>Catalogue Entry</b></font></p><p>Emily Greenwood Calmady, an amateur artist, brought her two elder daughters to Lawrence’s London studio in July 1823 on the advice of a friend, the engraver Frederick Christian Lewis, in the hope that Lawrence would offer to paint them. Lawrence was captivated by Emily and her younger sister Laura Anne. He asked two hundred guineas for a double portrait, though his regular price was two hundred and fifty guineas, but then reduced the price again to one hundred and fifty pounds. He began with a preliminary study in pencil and colored chalks (location unknown), which he gave to Mrs. Calmady when she admired it.</p><p><br /></p><p>According to Lawrence, this work was his “best picture of the kind” and “one of the few I should wish hereafter to be known by&quot; (Williams 1831). It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824, where it was enthusiastically received: the <i>Times</i>, on May 4, called it one of Lawrence&#039;s &quot;happiest works&quot;; the <i>Literary Gazette</i>, on May 8, described &quot;the playful and beautiful sentiment that shines through all&quot;; and the <i>Examiner</i>, on May 10, felt that only Correggio could have surpassed it. The painting was subsequently viewed by King George IV at Windsor, and in 1825 Lawrence took it with him to Paris, where he showed it privately. It was lithographed in color, becoming an extremely popular image in France. A line engraving of 1832 by George T. Doo and a mezzotint of 1835 by Samuel Cousins (The Met, <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/371644" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/371644" rel="nofollow"><u>1978.676</u></a>) are both titled <i>Nature</i>. There are several copies after the painting (Baetjer 2009, p. 216 n. 7).</p><p><br /></p><p>The artist was a collector and connoisseur, and possible sources for his double portrait are Raphael’s <i>Madonna della Sedia</i> and <i>Saint John the Baptist</i>, Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo, Carlo Maratta’s paintings, and the <i>Laocoön</i> (of which Lawrence owned and displayed a lifesize cast; Levey 1979 and 2005, Wilson 1991, and Garlick 1993).</p><p><br /></p><p>[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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