Portret van Stringer Lawrence 1732 - 1775

Richard Houston made this mezzotint portrait of Stringer Lawrence in Britain sometime in the mid-18th century. Lawrence’s no-nonsense gaze seems to establish his status as a military man, while the oval frame around him alludes to the conventions of Roman portraiture. But Lawrence was not a Roman general. He was a military officer of the East India Company, an institution that gradually took control of India through armed force. We may consider this portrait as an emblem of the Company’s authority and its impact on British social structures. Lawrence served as a mentor to Robert Clive, and in 1748 he commanded the defense of Fort St. David, a trading post whose survival secured British dominion in southern India. This image and others like it would have been circulated to cultivate support for the East India Company among the British public. A full understanding of such images requires us to consider the economic and political dimensions of portraiture in 18th-century Britain.