Elizabeth Farren (born about 1759, died 1829), Later Countess of Derby

Lawrence exhibited the portrait of Elizabeth Farren at the Royal Academy in 1790, and its immediate success established the twenty-one-year-old painter as Reynolds's natural successor. Farren was a celebrated comedienne at Drury Lane Theatre who later married the Earl of Derby, ascending from the stage to the aristocracy. Lawrence's full-length portrait captures her walking through a landscape in elegant attire, her charm and vivacity conveyed through a composition of seemingly effortless grace. The portrait's combination of fashionable elegance and psychological sparkle defined the style that would make Lawrence the dominant British portraitist for the next forty years. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it remains his most famous early work.

Lawrence captures Farren's slender elegance with a silvery palette and feathery brushwork, silhouetting her against a wintry landscape. The virtuosic handling of the fur-trimmed wrap and the sense of arrested movement create extraordinary visual freshness.