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Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)
England, c. 1775
Oil on canvas
232 x 153 cm
Inv. no. 429
This painting was almost certainly produced when Elizabeth Garth married her cousin William Lowndes-Stone. The composition fundamentally adopts the sophisticated type of full-length portrait introduced by van Dyck, which had such a decisive influence on portrait painting in England during the eighteenth century.
The sitter is wearing a salmon-coloured silk dress and a transparent gauze shawl trimmed with a gold fringe. She is shown in a natural, standing pose framed by the landscape that English painting so loved. The portrait’s sophisticated style does not clash with the informality of her pose and the model’s enchanting freshness. Rather, the portrait captures the spontaneity that was characteristic of the painter’s finest work in this genre.
The painting bears some resemblance to other female portraits that the artist produced at that time. Yet this one possesses a unique quality that explains why it was rightly believed to be one of the finest portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, who was widely considered the “ideal artist to portray the English woman”.
A selection of 18th century-pieces in the Calouste Gulbenkian Collection
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