George Morland: Sixteen examples in colour of the artist's work — Background and Themes

George was slow to discover a spirit of independence, even when he came of age, remaining at home for at least six months after he had reached man's estate. His independent career began in 1785, when he was twenty-two years old. Having escaped from the hands of an Irish picture-dealer who worked him for his own advantage, he spent a few months at Margate, devoting himself with success to the painting of portraits he had been invited to do by a Mrs. Hill. He seems to have been tolerably industrious, for he was able to live in comfort and to share the amusements offered by a then fashionable watering-place. On his own showing he began to acquire at this period a taste for drink; but he was young, of robust constitution and fond of exercise, and his indulgence was not excessive.

After his return to London in 1786, he lived sometimes with his parents, and sometimes elsewhere. Among his acquaintances he numbered William Ward, the famous engraver, who had, ere this time, reproduced at least one of Morland's pictures. He became a frequent visitor at Ward's house at Kensal Green, and before long took up his quarters with the family, consisting of the engraver, his mother, and two sisters. Anne Ward, a very beautiful girl, soon captivated Morland, and they were married at St. Paul's, Hammersmith, on September 22, 1786.

He appears to have been steady and industrious during his residence at Kensal Green, and he continued to work hard for the first few months after his marriage, which was followed a month later by the wedding of William Ward to Maria Morland.

A joint establishment set up by the two young couples in High Street, Marylebone, endured for about three months; a quarrel ended in separation, and the Morlands found new quarters in Great Portland Street. It was during his early married life that the artist painted, among others, the six famous pictures known as the "Laetitia Series," for which his wife sat as model. The move to Great Portland Street was the first of the numerous changes of residence made by Morland during his married life. During the first two years these changes were dictated by the success which enabled him to house himself more comfortably; but the period of steadiness and hard work was so brief that it may be dismissed in a few lines. The advent of a still-born child, and the knowledge that he might not hope to be a father, appear to have been the means of unsettling him in his domestic capacity; and the indifference of his wife to the music he loved may have contributed to the same end; but the fact remains that within a year of marriage Morland began to neglect her. He acquired the habit of making trips into the country during the day and resorting to musical gatherings at night, leaving Mrs. Morland much to her own devices.

He was not idle in the ordinary sense of the word. Gifted with extraordinary facility, he painted numerous pictures which, if sold in business-like fashion, would have produced enough to raise him to affluence; but he had inherited from his father, in intensified form, a singular lack of common sense. He sold his pictures for any sum that might be offered, regardless of the fact that the purchasers took them direct to dealers in the certainty of disposing of them for double the money. Even while working on these lines his prolific brush and steadily increasing reputation enabled him to make a good income; but success, if the expression may be used, "went to his head." He launched out into the wildest extravagance, regulating his expenditure by the ease with which he could borrow rather than by the ease with which he could earn, and while he had cash in his pocket he would not work. As his reputation grew, largely through the medium of the engravings made from his pictures, the anxiety of dealers and others to secure works from his easel grew in ratio with it; his natural readiness to borrow was encouraged on every side by those who intended, or hoped, to obtain in pictures more than the equivalent of the money they advanced, and Morland gave promissory notes with joyful recklessness, absolutely indifferent to the load of debt he was rolling up.