[3] His illuminated Hebrew calendar and almanac, and a portrait of Hananel De Castro, 1840-1 president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, led to his being greatly admired among London's Jewish community.
[1] Laurent de Lara published Elementary instruction in the Art of Illumination, and Missal Painting on Vellum in 1850, which went to several editions.
[4] Beckwith has argued that while Laurent de Lara was a good self-promoter, he was not skilled at his art, and suggests that it was him who J. Willis Brooks called an "unprincipled adventurer" who exploited impoverished female illuminators.
[4] In Brooks's words, this exploited women "to place their excellent taste and skill, for worse than starvation prices, at the disposal of some unprincipled adventurer, ignorant himself of the very rudiments of the art he professes to teach.
[3][8] Beckwith notes that by the 1860s, Laurent de Lara's manual had competition in the form of other, more successfully developed publications by Winsor & Newton, George Rowney & Company, and J. Barnard and Son; and says he failed to grasp the idea that illumination was about a unity between text and ornament.