LONDON, ENGLAND.- Minister for Culture, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on a pencil and black and red chalk drawing of Mary Hamilton by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art that the export decision be deferred. This reflects the drawing’s outstanding aesthetic importance and its significance for the study of Lawrence, one of Britain’s greatest artists, and the whole genre of British portrait drawings executed as framed finished works intended for exhibition, sale and display. The Committee awarded a starred rating to the portrait, meaning that every effort should be made to raise enough money to keep it in the country

Lawrence was a child prodigy, self trained as a draftsman. Delacroix described his drawing of heads as incomparable and in these he was rivalled as a draftsman in his own period only by Ingres. The vigour and freedom that characterised Lawrence’s early work is manifest in this exquisite and charming drawing of Mary Hamilton, the wife of his friend the artist William Hamilton (1751-1801). It is arguably one of the most beautiful female portrait of its type. The location of the portrait is unrecorded in the literature on Lawrence so this is an exciting discovery of a work by one of the country’s greatest artists.

The deferral will enable purchase offers to be made at the following agreed fair market price:

The drawing, deferred at the recommended price of £165,000 (exclusive of VAT), until after 17 July 2005 with the possibility of an extension until after 17 October 2005 if there is a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase.

Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the drawing should contact the owner’s agent through:

The Secretary
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art
Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)
83 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0HW