Burke, reforming the King's household expenses, had reduced the salary of King's painter from L200 to L50 per annum. But the office was nevertheless a valuable source of emolument, derived in great part from the number of State portraits of the sovereign, required, by usage, for the adornment of certain official residences, and the duty and profit of executing which devolved, as of right, on the painter in ordinary. Thus the mansion of every ambassador of the crown, in the capital of the foreign court to which he was accredited, exhibited in its reception rooms whole-length portraits of the King and Queen of England. And these works were not fixtures in the official residence, but were considered as gifts from the sovereign to the individual ambassador, and remained his property--his perquisites on the cessation of his diplomatic functions. Each new appointment among the _corps diplomatique_, therefore, brought grist to the mill of the painter in ordinary in the shape of a new commission for a royal whole-length, usually a _replica_ of a previous work, but to be charged and paid for according to the artist's usual scale of prices for original pictures. When Reynolds, late in his career, accepted the appointment, its pecuniary advantages were a matter of indifference to him, or he did not care to be for ever reduplicating or reproducing the 'counterfeit presentment' of the sovereign, and a fashion sprung up of compensating the ambassador with a fixed sum of money, the estimated market value of the royal portrait; his excellency not being in the least unwilling to accept the specie in lieu of the picture. But Lawrence did not find it expedient to follow Sir Joshua's example. He claimed a right to execute the portraits, however numerous, of the sovereign, let the diplomatists be ever so willing to take money instead. This claim was admitted, and he reaped large profits accordingly.[22] [22] See _Life of Sir M.A. Shee_, vol. i. p. 441. Add to his unquestionable art-abilities, that he was courtly in manner, an accomplished fencer and dancer, with a graceful figure and a handsome face; that he possessed an exquisitely modulated voice; and large, lustrous expressive eyes--the light in which seemed to be always kindling and brilliant.