Charles William Lambton ('The Red Boy')

This portrait of Charles William Lambton - aged six or seven - was commissioned by the boy’s father John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, a Whig politician and MP for County Durham. It is acknowledged as one of Thomas Lawrence ’s masterpieces and, a sign of the image’s enduring popularity, it was the first painting to be reproduced on a British postage stamp in 1967. Sitting on a promontory overlooking a moonlit sea, Lawrence portrays Lambton as a child wanderer, lost in contemplation of the sublime power of nature. The flowers opening next to him symbolise his young age.