Background
He was born at The Hague, the son of Marcellus Lauron, a painter of French extraction who settled in the Netherlands. He began his artistic education with his father, who took him to taken to England at an early age.
He was born at The Hague, the son of Marcellus Lauron, a painter of French extraction who settled in the Netherlands. He began his artistic education with his father, who took him to taken to England at an early age.
He provided the drawings for the popular series of prints "The Cries of London". According to brief biographies by Horace Walpole and Bainbrigg Buckeridge he was taught by one "Louisiana Zoon" before studying under one of the Flessiers, a family of Dutch painters and framemakers working in London in the mid-17th century. He spent several years in Yorkshire, and later told George Vertue that he had seen Rembrandt at Kingston upon Hull in 1661.
He lived in Bow Street, Covent Garden.
He was frequently employed to paint draperies for Sir Godfrey Kneller, and was well-known as a copyist. His self-portrait showed the scars resulting from injuries received in a street fight.
He died of consumption at Richmond, Surrey on 11 March 1702, and was buried there.
He had settled in London by 1674, the year in which he became a member of the Painter-Stainers Company.