George Henry Harlow 1787-1819. British School Early 19th.Century. Pencil and coloured chalk drawing. Portrait study of Elizabeth Lock of Norbury Park. Circa. 1805. 21 by 15 cms. Image. 25.7 by 29.7 cms. Overall in contemporary gilt Neo-Classical frame
Born and raised in London, George Henry Harlow entered Sir Thomas Lawrence's studio in 1803, and began exhibiting at the Royal Academy the following year. Precocious and prodigiously productive, Harlow had great success with portraits and theatrical subjects much in the manner of Lawrence, he died at the early age of thirty-one in 1819.
Elizabeth Jennings 1781-1846 was the daughter of the collector John Constantine Jennings, a celebrated beauty she married the gentleman-amateur artist and protege of Fuseli William Lock in 1800. Upon selling Norbury Park in 1819 they travelled extensively, afterwards living in Rome and Paris.
In a letter to her father (1 Sep 1801), Mme D'Arblay writes:
- [My son Alex] with gravest simplicity, went up to Mr. William Lock, who was here with his fair bride, and said, "How did you get that wife, William, because I want to get such a one — and I don't know which is the way."
Farington, writing of William Lock, notes,
- His wife has very good judgment, & has great ascendancy by exercising it, with temper, & without any pretension.