Thomas Lawrence died in debt in 1830 and the nation refused his Old Master drawings for £18,000, so a dealer who was his main creditor took them

Thomas Lawrence died suddenly on 7 January 1830, aged 60, and was buried in St Paul's on 21 January. He was insolvent. His will directed that his collection of Old Master drawings be offered at a price below their value, first to George IV, then to the British Museum trustees, then to Robert Peel and the Earl of Dudley. The price was £18,000, which the Ashmolean's catalogue of the collection says was probably under half of what he spent. None accepted. A posthumous inventory listed about 4,300 sheets and seven albums, compiled in haste by the dealer Samuel Woodburn. In 1834 the executor, Archibald Keightley, sold the drawings to Woodburn for £16,000. Woodburn was Lawrence's principal creditor and the source of many of the drawings. He sold them in exhibitions at his St Martin's Lane gallery^†. Many drawings later reached the British Museum and the Ashmolean. A memorial exhibition at the British Institution raised £3,000, which went to Lawrence's nieces. After creditors were paid, nothing else remained.