with biographers blaming his financial problems on his generosity towards his family and others, his inability to keep accounts (in spite of advice from his friend, painter and diarist Joseph Farington), and his magnificent but costly collection of Old Master drawings. Another source of unhappiness in Lawrence's life was his romantic entanglement with two of Sarah Siddons' daughters. He fell in love first with Sally, then transferred his affections to her sister Maria, then broke with Maria and turned to Sally again. Both sisters had fragile health; Maria died in 1798, on her deathbed extracting a promise from her sister never to marry Lawrence. Sally kept her promise and refused to see Lawrence again; she died in 1803. Lawrence continued on friendly terms with their mother and painted several portraits of her. He never married. In later years, two women provided him with companionship — friends Elizabeth Croft, and Isabella Wolff, who met Lawrence when she sat for her portrait in 1803. Isabella was married to Danish consul Jens Wolff, but she separated from him in 1810. Sir Michael Levey suggests that people may have wondered if Lawrence was the father of her son Herman. Lawrence's departures from portraiture were very rare. In the early 1790s he completed two history pictures: Homer reciting his poems, a small picture of the poet in a pastoral setting; and Satan summoning his legions, a giant canvas illustrating lines from John Milton's Paradise Lost. Boxer John Jackson posed for the naked body of Satan; the face is that of Sarah Siddons' brother, John Philip Kemble. Lawrence's parents died within a few months of each other in 1797. He gave up his house in Picadilly, where he had moved from Old Bond Street, to set up his studio in the family home in Greek Street. By now, to keep up with the demand for replicas of his portraits, he was using studio assistants, most notable of whom were William Etty and George Henry Harlow. The early years of the 19th century saw Lawrence's portrait practice continue to flourish. Amongst his sitters were major political figures such as Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville and William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose wife Lady Caroline Lamb he also painted. The king commissioned portraits of his daughter-in-law Caroline, the estranged wife of the Prince of Wales; and his granddaughter Charlotte. Lawrence stayed at Montague House, the princess's residence in