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Lot Essay
There is no sense of a “sitter” here, simply her own special unique personality looks out at us for all ages with an almost uncanny vividness. Her dress is a miracle of colour in paint.
Whitechapel Art Gallery: Spring Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, London, 1906, p. 75, no. 34
This exquisite portrait of an unidentified woman has been dated by Hugh Belsey to circa 1773, based on its similarity to Gainsborough’s portrait of Mrs. Clement Tudway (Philadelphia Museum of Art), for which a payment is recorded in July of that year. By that time, Gainsborough had established himself as the leading portraitist in Georgian Bath. He had moved there in 1759 after settling his affairs in Ipswich, and quickly made a name for himself as a fashionable portraitist. Soon after, in 1761, he began to exhibit in London at the recently formed Society of Artists, and later, from 1769, at the Royal Academy. In these prestigious settings, his talents could compete with the work of his contemporaries and a notorious rivalry with Sir Joshua Reynolds developed. Gainsborough’s consummate technical prowess coupled with his remarkable ability to capture a sitter’s likeness ensured that he encountered no shortage of wealthy and distinguished patrons in Bath, who were drawn to the spa town for its purported health benefits and bustling social scene, so much so that during the course of his fifteen years there, he was able to increase the cost of his half-length portraits from 15 gns. to 60 gns.
From his location in Somerset, Gainsborough was within easy distance of the great West-Country picture collections at Wilton, Corsham and Longford Castle. There, he encountered European masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Gainsborough never travelled abroad, so the opportunity for such first-hand study was of critical importance and manifested itself in the emergence of a more formal elegance in his own pictures. Simultaneously, he began to employ a more experimental approach to portraiture, developing a highly instinctive and impressionistic technique, which would be praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds some years later during his valedictory Discourse of 10 December 1778; 'all those odd scratches and marks... which even to experienced painters appear rather the effect of accident than design... this shapeless appearance, by a kind of magik [sic.], at a certain distance assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places' (J. Reynolds, Discourse on Art, XIV, London, 1788, ed. R.R. Wark, London, 1966, p. 226).
With his palette swimming in turpentine, Gainsborough uses vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes to convey the sitter's blue, pearl-studded wrapping gown, which she wears over a chemise and tied by a scarf at the waist. The remarkable freedom and fluency of the handling is allied with moments of subtle observation, notably in the virtuoso rendering of the gold trim, which follows the scalloped line of the sleeves. Her high-dressed hair is decorated with pearls and worn with a long plait over her right shoulder in a style which reached its peak in the mid-1770s. She reciprocates the viewers gaze with an expression of implied intimacy and just the suggestion of a smile.
The extraordinary quality of this enigmatic portrait has long been documented. In the accompanying catalogue to the Whitechapel exhibition, its author described the portrait as ‘vital with some tense existence of its own. We see the individual personality of the lady.’ He continues, ‘If one looks for a moment from this portrait to the other excellent portraits in this room, one notices a difference. The others strike one as paintings; this has some magical quality of life, the secret of which the subtle genius of Gainsborough alone knew’ (op. cit., p. 75). Charles Holmes, in his review of the same exhibition, lauded the portrait as ‘of perfect quality’ (op. cit., p. 123). A little later, at the time of the sale of the Joseph collection to Agnew’s in 1916, The Times singled out the picture as ‘one of the finest of the portraits’ (loc. cit.), and most recently, Hugh Belsey admired it as being ‘a very beautiful portrait’ (written communication, 2018).
Whitechapel Art Gallery: Spring Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, London, 1906, p. 75, no. 34
This exquisite portrait of an unidentified woman has been dated by Hugh Belsey to circa 1773, based on its similarity to Gainsborough’s portrait of Mrs. Clement Tudway (Philadelphia Museum of Art), for which a payment is recorded in July of that year. By that time, Gainsborough had established himself as the leading portraitist in Georgian Bath. He had moved there in 1759 after settling his affairs in Ipswich, and quickly made a name for himself as a fashionable portraitist. Soon after, in 1761, he began to exhibit in London at the recently formed Society of Artists, and later, from 1769, at the Royal Academy. In these prestigious settings, his talents could compete with the work of his contemporaries and a notorious rivalry with Sir Joshua Reynolds developed. Gainsborough’s consummate technical prowess coupled with his remarkable ability to capture a sitter’s likeness ensured that he encountered no shortage of wealthy and distinguished patrons in Bath, who were drawn to the spa town for its purported health benefits and bustling social scene, so much so that during the course of his fifteen years there, he was able to increase the cost of his half-length portraits from 15 gns. to 60 gns.
From his location in Somerset, Gainsborough was within easy distance of the great West-Country picture collections at Wilton, Corsham and Longford Castle. There, he encountered European masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Gainsborough never travelled abroad, so the opportunity for such first-hand study was of critical importance and manifested itself in the emergence of a more formal elegance in his own pictures. Simultaneously, he began to employ a more experimental approach to portraiture, developing a highly instinctive and impressionistic technique, which would be praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds some years later during his valedictory Discourse of 10 December 1778; 'all those odd scratches and marks... which even to experienced painters appear rather the effect of accident than design... this shapeless appearance, by a kind of magik [sic.], at a certain distance assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places' (J. Reynolds, Discourse on Art, XIV, London, 1788, ed. R.R. Wark, London, 1966, p. 226).
With his palette swimming in turpentine, Gainsborough uses vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes to convey the sitter's blue, pearl-studded wrapping gown, which she wears over a chemise and tied by a scarf at the waist. The remarkable freedom and fluency of the handling is allied with moments of subtle observation, notably in the virtuoso rendering of the gold trim, which follows the scalloped line of the sleeves. Her high-dressed hair is decorated with pearls and worn with a long plait over her right shoulder in a style which reached its peak in the mid-1770s. She reciprocates the viewers gaze with an expression of implied intimacy and just the suggestion of a smile.
The extraordinary quality of this enigmatic portrait has long been documented. In the accompanying catalogue to the Whitechapel exhibition, its author described the portrait as ‘vital with some tense existence of its own. We see the individual personality of the lady.’ He continues, ‘If one looks for a moment from this portrait to the other excellent portraits in this room, one notices a difference. The others strike one as paintings; this has some magical quality of life, the secret of which the subtle genius of Gainsborough alone knew’ (op. cit., p. 75). Charles Holmes, in his review of the same exhibition, lauded the portrait as ‘of perfect quality’ (op. cit., p. 123). A little later, at the time of the sale of the Joseph collection to Agnew’s in 1916, The Times singled out the picture as ‘one of the finest of the portraits’ (loc. cit.), and most recently, Hugh Belsey admired it as being ‘a very beautiful portrait’ (written communication, 2018).