Art Eyewitness Review: Gainsborough at the Frick Collection, New York

 

Gainsborough: the  Fashion of Portraiture

Frick Collection, New York City

February 11, 2026 - May 11, 2026

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Original photography by Anne Lloyd

The eighteenth century counterparts of today's "jet set" or "the rich and famous" were known as "people of fashion." Part of the pleasure of being included in such elite company - then and now - is having one's portrait painted for public display or for later generations to admire at their leisure.

"People of fashion" in Great Britain were fortunate in having numerous painters of talent to record their features. This was especially true by the 1750's, by which time native-born artists had finally gained precedence over the Flemish and German portrait painters who had earlier dominated the art scene in the British Isles.

The Frick Collection is currently exhibiting the works of one of the most successful and influential portrait painters of the Georgian Era. This is what historians call the period, in reference to the three successive monarchs, all named George, who reigned during the eighteenth century. 

After viewing this magnificent exhibit, I came away with feeling that a better title for those years would be the Age of Gainsborough.

   Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Thomas Gainsborough's Self-Portrait,1787

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) is the key figure in the transformation of British art during the 1700's. His artistic career began with stiffly-posed group portraits known as "conversations." Then, in 1750, he painted a major, if small format, work which marked his emergence as one of Britain's leading artists.

Thomas Gainsborough's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, ca. 1750

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews is both a portrait and a landscape. Hidden away in a private collection, it was for many years unknown to the public. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Thomas Gainsborough's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (detail), ca. 1750

Since its rediscovery during the 1920's, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews has gained an almost mythic status. On loan to the Frick from the National Gallery in London, this is one of the stand-out works in Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture.

Following Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, Gainsborough's prodigious output featured idyllic landscapes and "fancy" pictures, which are best understood as fanciful or romanticized depictions of rural children. To his chagrin, few of these sold.

Gainsborough's fame chiefly rests on his magnificent portraits. This is the theme of the Frick exhibition, a portal both to a long-ago epoch and to flesh and blood humanity, swathed in the latest fashion.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

Gallery view of Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture at the Frick Collection. The paintings shown here are Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her sons, Samuel and Thomas, 1779/1784, and Mrs. Sheridan, ca. 1783

Amazingly, this is the first exhibition surveying Gainsborough's portraits by a New York City museum. This is a surprising development, given the rich holdings of his works at the Frick and, further up 5th Avenue, at The Met. Why? Perhaps, this is due to the many contradictions in Gainsborough's life and art.

Despite Gainsborough's success, he was never knighted, as his rival Joshua Reynolds was. Gainsborough was an outsider by birth and inclination. His family were "Non-Conformists" in the religious sense of those who would not subscribe to the theology and rituals of the Church of England. And when it came to his artistic practice, Gainsborough refused to tolerate any measure of oversight or interference from the official Royal Academy, presided over by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

This brief account of Gainsborough's background underscores how ironic, almost humorously so, was his acclaim and status as one of the leading portrait painters of "people of fashion."

Gainsborough did not particularly enjoy immortalizing the British aristocracy. Of England's "milords" and country gentlemen, he declared, "they have but one part worth looking at and that is their purse."

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Thomas Gainsborough's Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (detail),1783 

When it came to the "fair ladies" of England and Scotland, Gainsborough certainly found more than "one part worth looking at." This was a consequence of a sincere empathy for and an equally strong physical attraction to women.

Gainsborough's character was complex and compromised, especially his attitude to marital fidelity. The Frick exhibition, wisely, steers clear of this issue and controversy, in general. And so shall we, except to stop for a moment's reflection before the portrait of his wife, Margaret, painted in 1777-78.

 Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Thomas Gainsborough's Margaret Gainsborough (detail), ca. 1778 

Without a doubt this is a loving image, perhaps the greatest portrait of a spouse ever created and a tribute to one's soul mate. To be able to study this magnificent work at the Frick is truly an honor.  

Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture has many insights of value to share. These relate both to Gainsborough's life and to the role of portraiture in human society - the act of creating the public image people present to the world, while clarifying or obscuring their inner selves. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Aimee Ng, John Updike Curator at the Frick Collection

In the text of the superb catalog to the exhibition, Aimee Ng, curator at the Frick, astutely notes:

Portraits are not simply records of what people looked like and wore - though some are. What the artist painted his sitters wearing at times had little to do with how they dressed in real life and, like portraiture itself, was a construction and invention in paint.

Gainsborough, quite often, had occasion to "invent in paint" favorable images of women, subjected to the raised eyebrows, gossip and scorn of polite society. 

One of the most notable instances of such invention was Gainsborough's portrait of the The Hon. Frances Duncombe, one of the treasures of the Frick. This elegant young woman, whose private life caused tongues to wag, will be featured in a forthcoming book written by Aimee Ng.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Thomas Gainsborough's The Hon. Frances Duncombe (detail), ca. 1776

Gainsborough was much more at ease painting aristocratic and upper-class ladies than their husbands or lovers, especially those who were army or naval commanders. Military portraits, laden with gold braid and sabers, were a specialty of Reynolds. 

A contrast in military portraiture:

Sir Joshua Reynolds' Sir John Burgoyne, 1766; Thomas

 Gainsborough's Captain Augustus John Hervey,1768.

Gainsborough, however, could certainly hold his own in this respect, too. His portrait of the Royal Navy officer, Captain Augustus John Hervey, can more than stand its ground against Reynold's Sir John Burgoyne, a notable work of the Frick Collection. In a future post, I plan to address the fascinating rivalry between Gainsborough and Reynolds.

As Gainsborough's fame spread, "well-born" ladies flocked to his studios. After a few years working in his native Suffolk, Gainsborough set-up his practice in the resort city of Bath in 1759. Then, he relocated to the West End of London in 1774. His customers seldom were disappointed with their "likeness" by Gainsborough.

Thomas Gainsborough, Mary, Countess Howe, ca. 1763-1764

Mary, Countess Howe, painted at some point during the years, 1763-1764, is a particularly notable example of Gainsborough's acute perception and masterly skill. The wife of a British naval hero who was heir to a noble title, the Countess Howe had been born Mary Hartopp of a Nottinghamshire family far down in the ranks of the social register. But you would never know that looking at the hauteur of her pose and the gleam in her eyes, bewitching and calculating in equal measure.                                                                                                                                                               

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

Gallery view of Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture.

Entering the two exhibition galleries at the Frick can - at least initially - be disorienting. There are twenty-five paintings on view, several of them full-length, almost life-sized, portraits of "women of fashion." The scale of these paintings and the shimmer of silk and glistening pearls can make for sensory-overload. It really takes some effort straining your neck to glimpse the faces of Gainsborough's female protagonists.

Gainsborough came from a family involved in the fabric trade. He thus had an insider's knowledge of handling silk and satin, velvet and lace. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Detail of Thomas Gainsborough's The Hon. Frances Duncombe, 1776

Gainsborough also acquired first-hand experience of the "cut-throat" nature of business practice in Georgian England. His father's textile firm went bankrupt when he was a boy. Shortly afterward, he was sent to London to learn the engraver's trade. It was there that he took night-school painting classes at the St. Martin's Lane Academy managed by the redoubtable William Hogarth.

Like Hogarth, Gainsborough was single-minded and determined to paint his own way. In the mid-eighteenth century, there was a vogue for dressing-up in gowns and tunics of the type appearing in the seventeenth century portraits by Anthony van Dyck. Except in certain instances - The Blue Boy, being the most celebrated example - Gainsborough would have none of this. 

Gainsborough insisted that his patrons wear the clothing of the present-day. Many of them, initially pleased, would bring their portraits back after styles had changed, to have them repainted in the latest fashion. Gainsborough took it in stride. 

"I am very well aware of the Objection to modern dresses in Pictures," Gainsborough wrote to Lord Dartmouth, "that they are soon out of fashion and look awkward; but as that misfortune cannot be helped we must set it against the unluckiness of fancied dresses taking away Likenesses, the principle beauty and intention of a portrait."

In the case of the portrait of Elizabeth Moody (1756-1782), who died from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-six, Gainsborough was commissioned to rework it, but not because of a change in fashion. 

  Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)

 Thomas Gainsborough's Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her Sons, Samuel and Thomas, ca. 1779, reworked ca. 1784.

The painting we see, from the collection of the Dulwich Picture Library, is very different from the first version of the work. This had likely been painted at the time of her marriage in 1779. But it was not until 1989, that the radical extent of the difference was established.

At the time of her death, Elizabeth Moody had two young sons, Samuel (twenty months old) and Thomas (eight months). The children in the painting, however, are much older.

Furthermore, art historians noted that Mrs. Moody's right hand, holding young Thomas, was awkwardly painted by Gainsborough's standards. By comparison, her left hand, grasping Samuel's arm, is beautifully composed.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 Detail of Thomas Gainsborough's Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her Sons

Something did not add-up.

The exhibition catalog explains these seeming discrepancies:

In 1989, X-radiography of the portrait confirmed that Gainsborough had originally painted Elizabeth Moody alone, probably around the time of her marriage in 1779 to Samuel Moody and before the births of Samuel, in 1781, and Thomas, in 1782. ... Evidently, Samuel Moody brought the portrait back to Gainsborough in the year or two after Elizabeth’s death (judging from the apparent age of the toddlers). Adding the figures of the children as they appeared then, and not at the age they were when she died, Gainsborough painted over her right arm, which had originally reached upward to toy with a pearl necklace.

This explanation, having brilliantly solved the mystery of this poignant work of art, should not distract us from the more fundamental message of Gainsborough's art. This is visible in the astonishing way Gainsborough articulated the face of young Samuel Moody (above), his mother and little brother - and all of the other subjects of Gainsborough's "pencil", as paint brushes were then called.                               

  

                                                             Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)

 A gallery of portraits from works on view in

Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture. Clockwise from top left: 

Grace Dalrymple Elliott,1778; Thomas Keable, ca.1750; Ignatius Sancho, 1768; Mary, Duchess of Montagu, ca.1768

A Gainsborough grand-portrait is, almost without exception, not an example of beautiful clothing "making" the woman or man who posed before his easel. However great his facility in depicting the costumes of his subjects, Gainsborough's ability in summoning-forth their humanity with oil on canvas was greater still.

Let the last word be Gainsborough's, from a quote mentioned earlier.

"Likenesses," Thomas Gainsborough said, are "the principle beauty and intention of a portrait."

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                          

Original photography, copyright of Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture, showing Thomas Gainsborough’s Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ca. 1783.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Thomas Gainsborough’s Self-Portrait, ca. 1787. Oil on canvas: 30 7/8 x 25 3/8 in. (77.3 x 64.5 cm) Royal Academy of Arts, (03/1395)

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727-1788) Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, ca. 1750. Oil on canvas:27 1/2 x 47 in. (69.8 x 119.4 cm) National Gallery, London (NG6301)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (detail), ca. 1750.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture, showing Thomas Gainsborough’s Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her Sons, Samuel and Thomas, 1779/1784. and Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ca. 1783.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026)Thomas Gainsborough's Mrs.Richard Brinsley Sheridan (detail), ca. 1783. Oil on canvas: 86 1/2 x 60 1/2 in. (251.46 x 185.42 cm.)  National Gallery, Washington D.C.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026).Thomas Gainsborough’s Margaret Gainsborough (detail), ca. 1778. Oil on canvas: 30 3/16 x 25 1/8 in. (76.6 x 73.8 cm) The Courtauld, London (P.1932.SC.157)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Amee Ng, John Updike Curator at the Frick Collection.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Thomas Gainsborough’s The Hon. Frances Duncombe (detail), ca. 1776. Oil on canvas: 92 1/4 x 61 1/8 in. (234.3 x 155.3 cm) The Frick Collection, New York

Comparisons of paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Burgoyne, 1766, and Thomas Gainsborough’s Captain Augustus John Hervey, later 3rd Earl of Bristol, ca. 1768.

Thomas Gainsborough (English,1727-1788) Mary, Countess Howe, 1763–64. Oil on canvas: 94 15/16 x 60 3/4 in. (243.2 x 154.3 cm) English Heritage, Kenwood House, London; The Iveagh Bequest.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of Gainsborough: the Fashion of Portraiture.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Detail of Thomas Gainsborough’s The Hon. Frances Duncombe.

 Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Thomas Gainsborough’s Margaret Gainsborough (detail), ca. 1778. Oil on canvas: 30 3/16 x 25 1/8 in. (76.6 x 73.8 cm) The Courtauld, London (P.1932.SC.157)

 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her Sons, Samuel and Thomas, ca. 1779, reworked ca. 1784. Oil on canvas: 92 1/8 x 60 11 ⁄ 16 in. (234 x 154.2 cm). Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (DPG316)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Thomas Gainsborough’s Grace Dalrymple Elliott (detail), 1778. Oil on canvas: 92 1/4 x 60 1/2 in. (234.3 x 153.7 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920 (20.155.1)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Thomas Keable in Thomas Gainsborough’s Peter Darnell Muilman, Charles Crokatt and William Keable in a Landscape, ca. 1750. Oil on canvas: 765 x 642 mm. Tate Britain/Gainsborough’s House

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Thomas Gainsborough’s Ignatius Sancho, 1768. Oil on canvas: 29 x 241/2 in. (73.7 x 62.2 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727-1788) Mary, Duchess of Montagu, ca.1768. Oil on canvas: 49 1/4 x 39 1/2 in. (125.1 x 100.3 cm). Duke of Buccleuch, Bowhill House, Scottish Borders; lent by the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, K. T. and the Trustees of the Buccleuch Chattels Trust.

 

 here

Cost of Revolution at the Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia

 

Cost of Revolution: The Life and Death of an Irish Soldier  

Museum of the American Revolution  

Sept. 28, 2019 through March 17, 2020

Reviewed by Ed Voves
Original photography by Anne Lloyd

The American Revolution began in 1773 with a defiant prank that resulted in 340 chests of tea tossed into Boston Harbor. A decade later, on November 25, 1783, America’s struggle for independence ended with a practical joke.

The last British troops to evacuate New York City nailed the Union Jack onto the flagpole at their fort near the Battery. The Redcoats slathered grease on the flagpole so that the victorious Patriots would have a tough time replacing the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. It took a few attempts, but Old Glory eventually was raised over New York City.

During the ten year interval between the Boston Tea Party and the British departure from New York, a living-nightmare of suffering, slaughter and sobering loss of life took place.

Xavier Della Gatta, The Battle of Paoli, 1782

The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia has just opened a superb exhibition, entitled Cost of Revolution. This remarkable display of art and historic artifacts focuses on the life, sufferings and death of one soldier of the American Revolutionary War, a British officer named Richard St. George.

Before examining the life of Richard St. George, let us briefly look at the estimates of those who were killed in battle or died of disease,1775-1783: 24,000 Patriots, 24,000 British, 7,500 Hessian mercenaries and 600 French soldiers and sailors.

No figures are available for civilian deaths, but these were certainly in the thousands. Many of these non-military fatalities, as was the case in the opposing armies, were inflicted by a far deadlier foe than musket-armed foot soldiers: smallpox. A dreadful smallpox epidemic ravaged North America during the American Revolution. Particularly hard hit were African American slaves who fled to refugee camps set-up by the British early in the war, only to be stricken
.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) 

Joseph Wright of Derby's The Dead Soldier (detail), c.1789

The cost of America's Revolution? A butcher's bill likely to have numbered 75,000 dead.

With all of this slaughter and suffering, why did the Museum of the American Revolution focus on just one soldier's plight? Was the experience of Richard St. George, a lieutenant in a British light infantry unit, so revealing of the hardships of the many? Moreover, is it fitting to use the tale of a soldier who survived the war, though horribly wounded, to illustrate the "cost" of Revolution?

A resounding yes to all of the above! The decision to chronicle the life of Richard St. George is a truly outstanding effort of bringing the past to life. In this superb exhibition, the curators of Cost of Revolution probe many vital issues of the era of the American Revolution - and topics of relevance to our contemporary world, as well.
  

Thomas Gainsborough, Richard St. George Mansergh-St. George, 1776

In addition to his courageous service during the American Revolution, Richard St. George was a talented amateur artist and man of wide-ranging cultural interests. Shortly before sailing to join his British Army unit in the American colonies, St. George posed for his portrait in 1776. Selecting Thomas Gainsborough to paint his likeness was an inspired choice. Gainsborough  portrayed St. George as "every inch the officer and gentleman" but also an untested, "unbloodied" soldier.

In contrast to this "before the battle" portrait, the noted Irish artist, Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739-1808), later painted a number of portraits of St. George still bearing the marks of his wartime head wound suffered at the Battle of Germantown in 1777. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo, 2019)
Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Richard St. George, c. 1800

This portrait of St. George, actually done after his death, shows him wearing a skull cap to cover his battle scars. 

St. George was shot in the head by one of the deadly marksmen of Washington's army. Because Germantown was  close to Philadelphia (today it is a Philly neighborhood), the wounded officer was rushed to a hospital where skilled medical care was available.

"Rushed" to a hospital is a bit of an exaggeration. St. George later drew a sketch of himself, wrapped in a blue cloak, being taken in a farm cart along with other wounded troops to an aid station. St. George entitled the sketch "My triumphant return into Philadelphia." Later, this somber scene reappeared in a painting of the Battle of Germantown which St. George commissioned an Italian artist, Xavier Della Gatta, to paint.

Richard St. George, My Triumphant Return into Philadelphia, c.1777-78

Triumphantly or not, the wounded St. George made it back to Philadelphia. Desperate injuries call for desperate remedies and that is what saved St. George. A surgeon removed part of his skull with a medical instrument called a trephine saw. 

Trephine (Skull Saw), Mütter Museum, Philadelphia

By performing this gruesome operation, fatal swelling of brain tissue was prevented. This enabled the wound to heal by keeping it bandaged and clean. Eventually a silver plate was inserted over the opening in St. George's skull.

It goes without saying that this "brain surgery" was performed without anesthetics. Wounded soldiers were given a "dram" of whiskey or brandy and had a musket ball placed in their mouths for them to "grit" their teeth upon, to keep from choking. Then the surgeons set to work amputating limbs or, in St. George's case, sawing a hole in his head. Wounds in the torso were inoperable and soldiers shot in the chest or abdomen rarely survived.

The emotional scars St. George suffered went much deeper than this nearly fatal gunshot could inflict. His brush with death created a lingering psychic condition which today we call posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

Richard St. George, Self-portrait of the artist, c. late 1780's

His continued suffering led St. George to investigate spiritualism and other-worldly phenomenon in the years following the Revolutionary War. St. George cultivated friendships with prominent figures in the British cultural scene, who were involved in the great shift of thought and feeling we now call Romanticism. 

With his abundant talents, incredible life experiences and sensitive disposition, St. George might well have become a major author or artist himself. St. George, alas, had one more character trait which ultimately determined that he would not "cheat" fate.

Richard St. George Mansergh-St. George was an Irishman.

Born about 1752 into a family of wealthy Protestant aristocrats, St. George was by birthright a member of Ireland's "ascendancy." St. George's family, prominent in Britain's military, owned a vast expanse of Irish lands which he eventually inherited. Courageous, self-confident to the point of arrogance, the Anglo-Irish warrior-gentry embodied Oliver Goldsmith's immortal words in The Traveller (1764)

 Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,                                                                       

   I see the lords of human kind pass by.                                                                               Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,                                                                        

 By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand;                                                               Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,                                                                             True to imagine'd right, above control ...

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Flag from the 1798 Irish Revolt

In 1798, the seemingly absolute sway of the "Ascendancy" suddenly was challenged. Radical insurrection, triggered by the French Revolution, reached the shores of Ireland.  For the second time in his life, St. George confronted the "cost" of revolution, and this time paid the full price.

The Museum of the American Revolution received cooperation of the highest order from a number of Irish museums, making a carefully-balanced treatment of the life and times of Richard St. George possible. One of the treasures of Ireland's National Museum is on view in Cost of Revolution. This is the bloodstained pocketbook or wallet of Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), a leader of the United Irishmen, who tried to break Britain's control of Ireland.

Theobald Wolfe Tone's Pocketbook, National Museum of Ireland

I cannot recall any previous exhibition in the United States dealing with the 1798 "Year of Liberty" in Ireland. Cost of Revolution is a true revelation in this respect.

The same can also be said for the more familiar events of the American Revolution. There is always something to be learned from history, especially when, as in the case of the Museum of the American Revolution, "living" history is the goal.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)

 Living history educator, Matthew van Nostrand

At the press preview, several "living history" educators from the museum's staff were present. Two of them were dressed in the combat attire of St. George's regiment, the 52nd Foot, as the British called infantry units. 

St. George and his comrades were light infantrymen and here another surprise from the past is in store. During the Revolutionary War, the British became as skilled as the Americans in "Indian-style" tactics, taking cover and firing from behind trees. A Scottish officer, Major Patrick Ferguson (1744-1780), introduced a breach-loading rifle during the war. A working replica of the Ferguson rifle was on hand at the press preview which museum president, Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, expertly explained. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)

 Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, director of the Museum of the American Revolution,

 explaining the breach-loading rifle invented by Major Patrick Ferguson

The Ferguson rifle was the most advanced firearm of the eighteenth century but, fortunately for Washington's Continentals, it was a little too advanced. According to Dr. Stephenson, this rapid-firing weapon quickly clogged after a number of shots, due to the build-up of residue from the crude gunpowder used during the 1770's.

Warfare during the "Age of Reason" had more in common with the horrors of the Thirty Years War than with enlightened rationalism of Voltaire and Diderot. 

As the centerpiece of the gallery dealing with the Battle of Germantown, a life-sized - and incredibly life-like - display of two light infantrymen of the 52nd is on view. We are confronted with the "face" of battle. The features of the sword-bearing officer are modeled on those of Richard St. George.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)

Gallery view of Under Attack at Germantown

at the Cost of Revolution exhibition

The astonishing realism of this sculpture has to be seen to be believed. Once you look into the eyes of these grim-faced warriors, you start to realize what it means to fight for your life, to kill or to be killed.

My wife and I were very moved to come face-to-face with Richard St. George when we studied this stunning work of historical recreation. Anne and I had seen a similar display dealing with the Napoleonic Wars at the National Army Museum in London many years ago. I mentioned this to Dr. Stephenson who said that both statue groups were based on the research of a great historian-illustrator named Gerald Embleton,  

At the risk of contradicting myself, I did discover a link between the Age of Reason and the bloodshed of the American War of Independence. Adam Smith, the great Scottish economist, published a treatise of philosophy entitled Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). In this work, Smith makes an observation showing the way that human beings can connect with the experiences of others, on different sides of the battle line and across centuries.

Adam Smith wrote:

As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves feel in like situation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers … it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)

Gallery view of the Cost of Revolution exhibit,

showing Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Richard St. George

That is precisely the effect that Cost of Revolution has, informing, stimulating and challenging our "imagination only that we can form any conception of what" are the feelings of other human beings.

The resonances of Richard St. George's life are truly palpable in the exhibition galleries at the Museum of the American Revolution. 

The experience of combat, of living with a debilitating wound, of being caught a second time in the chaos of political upheaval are not abstractions in Cost of Revolution. For a moment, however brief, our imaginations are moved to feel and to understand what Richard St. George endured when a well-aimed bullet at the Battle of Germantown stretched his body and his mind "upon the rack" of suffering - from which he was never to be free. 


***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Original Photos: Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved.                                                                                        
Images courtesy of the  Museum of the American Revolution 


Introductory Image:

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Under Attack at Germantown (detail), gallery display at the Cost of Revolution exhibition, the Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia.

Xavier Della Gatta (Italian, active 1777-1828) The Battle of Paoli, 1782. Oil painting commissioned by Richard St. George. Collection of the Museum of the American Revolution , Philadelphia.   

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)  Joseph Wright of Derby's The Dead Soldier (detail), c. 1789. Oil on canvas: 40 x 50 inches (101.6 x 127 cm). Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Accession Number B1974.3.25

Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-1788) Richard St. George Mansergh-St. George, 1776. Oil on canvas: 230.2 × 156.1 cm.  National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Felton Bequest, 1922. #1223-3

Hugh Douglas Hamilton (Irish, 1739-1808 ) Richard St. George, c.1800. Oil on Panel, Private Collection.

Richard St. George (Irish, c.1752-1798) My triumphant return to Philadelphia, c. 1778. Ink, watercolor on paper. Harlan Crow Library, Dallas, Texas.

Trephine (Skull Saw). Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Richard St. George (Irish, c.1752-1798) Self-portrait of the artist. Watercolor wash: 24 x 37 cm. (9.4 x 14.6 in.) Museum of the American Revolution, Gift of Mr. Roger Shuttlewood

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Flag from the 1798 Irish Revolt, on display in the Cost of Revolution exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution.

Theobald Wolfe Tone's Pocketbook, National Museum of Ireland

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019), Living history educator, Matthew van Nostrand, of the Museum of American Revolution.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, director of the Museum of the American Revolution, explaining the workings of the breach-loading rifle invented by Major Patrick Ferguson.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Gallery view of Under Attack at Germantown, exhibit display at the Cost of Revolution exhibition, the Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Gallery view of the Cost of Revolution exhibit, showing Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Richard St. George.

Gainsborough's Family Album at the Princeton Museum of Art

Gainsborough's Family Album

Princeton University Art Museum

February 23 - June 9, 2019

Reviewed by Ed Voves

In June of 1787, the British painter Thomas Gainsborough was staggered by the death of Carl Friedrich Abel. A noted composer and master player of the viola da gamba, Abel had been one on the music-loving painter's greatest friends. In a letter to Rev. Henry Bate-Dudley, Gainsborough wrote:

We love a genius for what he leaves and we mourn him for what he takes away... For my part I shall never cease looking up to heaven - the little while I have to stay behind - in hopes of getting one more glance of the man I loved from the moment I heard him touch the string. 

Visitors to the superb exhibition, Gainsborough's Family Album, now at the Princeton University Museum of Art, will likely extend these moving words to Gainsborough himself.

Gainsborough's Family Album presents forty-four works by Gainsborough - all dealing with the subject of family: Gainsborough's family. The theme is hugely significant because Gainsborough painted his wife and daughters, siblings, niece, nephew and in-laws at exactly the moment when the concept of the modern family was taking shape. 

Earlier in history, family units were more extended and communal in nature. That of course is a broad generalization but the eighteenth century definitely saw a shift to more focused units of familial affection. Thomas Gainsborough's family, as the Princeton exhibition shows, was at the epicenter of this development, Great Britain during the reign of a noted family man, King George III. 

The facts of Gainsborough's life are essential to understanding the Princeton Museum exhibition and the greater story it tells.

Thomas Gainsborough,Self-portrait, mid-1770's, 
completed by Gainsborough Dupont, 1790

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) was a native of Suffolk in the eastern part of England, directly across the North Sea from the Netherlands. John Constable (1776-1837) was born in that region too and both artists looked to the great Flemish and Dutch art traditions which had begun to depict family life as an important theme a century before. 

Gainsborough's family were devout Christians, but not of the established Church of England. They were "independents," outsiders who could not hold government jobs or commissions in Britain's armed forces. Excluded from positions of power, many Independents found scope for their talents in the mines, factories and iron foundries of the rising Industrial Revolution. A Baptist preacher, Thomas Newcomen, invented the first effective steam engine in 1712.

Thomas Gainsborough, 

Humphrey Gainsborough, the Artist's Brother, early 1770s

Gainsborough's brother, Humphrey, followed a similar path. Humphrey was the minister of the Independent congregation of Henley-on-Thames on Sunday. During the workweek, he was an engineer, who is credited with a number of inventions, including improvements to Newcomen's engine.

Very much an "independent" himself, Thomas Gainsborough directed his creative talents in a different direction - the field of art.

Another vital factor about Gainsborough was  his personality. A charismatic and contradictory man, Gainsborough's personality was cut from the "whole cloth" of human nature.

A portrait painter by necessity, Gainsborough devoted himself to painting "landskips" of the English countryside - which seldom sold. He cared little for reading but was a skillful amateur musician. Generous to his friends, Gainsborough was thin-skinned and combative in his relationship with the art establishment, often at odds with Sir Joshua Reynolds, the president of the Royal Academy. 

And then there was his family. Gainsborough was a loving, doting father to his two daughters, Mary and Margaret. He was dutiful to his wife, Margaret, respecting her good sense and financial management skills. Gainsborough, however succumbed to the sexual temptations of the "rakehell" 1700's. He nearly died in 1763 of a fever likely caused by a "dangerous liaison."

Gainsborough's infidelity was especially hurtful as Margaret was the illegitimate daughter of the third Duke of Beaufort. She received a hefty annuity from the Duke's estate which bankrolled Gainsborough's artistic career, especially during his early struggles. Thus, Gainsborough's unfaithfulness was truly a "blow upon a bruise."

By way of recognition of his wife's many virtues, Gainsborough painted a number of portraits of her later in life. This 1777 likeness of Margaret Gainsborough is surely one of the greatest portraits of a wife ever painted by a husband.  

Thomas Gainsborough, Margaret Gainsborough, the Artist's Wife, 1777

For all the excesses and contradiction in his life, Gainsborough was shrewd and perceptive in the way he portrayed his family. He both loved his family as individuals and grasped their strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, Gainsborough had to have reflected on his own character and character faults. Only a person with strong self-awareness could have painted the incredible portraits which we see in the special exhibition gallery at Princeton. 
  

Thomas Gainsborough, 

The Artist' with his Wife Margaret and Eldest Daughter Mary, 1748

One of the first paintings on view in Gainsborough's Family Album is a very early work, painted in 1748. It shows a dapper Gainsborough and his wife, Margret, wearing a billowing, blue silk dress. Gainsborough's family was engaged in the clothing trade and he was extremely skillful in depicting a variety of textiles. This is a very fashionable painting, a conversation piece in the style of Gainsborough's teacher, Francis Hayman.

The Artist with his Wife, Margaret and Eldest Daughter Mary is also a somber, sorrowful work. The little child died before it was finished and the expressions of her parents reflect their emotions. Gainsborough had been attempting to establish his painting business in London at this time. In order to protect his wife and future children, he made the courageous and risky move to leave London for the more healthy environment of Sudbury in Suffolk and then the spa resort of Bath.

Gainsborough and his wife were blessed with two surviving daughters. The eldest was also named Mary, born in 1750, with Margaret following a year later. Gainsborough called them "Molly" and "the Captain."

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)
 View of the entrance to the Gainsborough's Family Album exhibit

While the girls were still very young, Gainsborough painted them chasing a butterfly, one of the great treasures of British art. This enchanting work appeared in the first presentation of Gainsborough's Family Album at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It is not on view in the Princeton show but a spectacular, over-sized copy welcomes visitors at the entrance to the exhibition gallery.

In 1760-61, Gainsborough painted a pair of double-portraits of his daughters which pose a number of questions. Gainsborough devoted exceptional skill to the faces of Mary and Margaret, yet both pictures of the adolescent girls remained unfinished. The most likely answer is that these were experimental paintings, tests of Gainsborough's ever-developing technique.

Thomas Gainsborough, Mary and Margaret Gainsborough,
 the Artist's Daughters, c. 1760–1 

The portrait of Mary reaching out to Margaret was originally painted on a single canvas, with Mary positioned slightly above Margaret. Later, the painting was cut into two separate portraits. Restorers, at some point in more recent times, reunited and touched-up the two parts, albeit in a way that was never intended. Had this been a finished painting, none of this would likely have occurred.

The unfinished nature of the double portrait of Molly and The Captain which introduces this review provides more insight into Gainsborough's technique. The cat they are playing with is barely sketched-in. Even more startling is the minimal attention given to the texture of the girls' dresses. For an artist who devoted enormous effort to getting the sheen and crinkle of silk and satin "just right," Gainsborough seems almost negligent in the way he painted his daughter's clothing. He just gives the impression in both of these portraits of everything but the faces of Mary and Margaret.

The word Impression is key to understanding Gainsborough. In many ways, he was the first "impressionist" though Velazquez could claim that honor too. It was not an accident either. Gainsborough often tied his painting brush to a long stick and painted at a considerable distance from his canvas. The effect was what you would expect in a Renoir or Van Gogh.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of Gainsborough after his death in 1788, directed the attention of his audience to how "all those odd scratches and marks… this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a kind of magick at a certain distance assumes form."

This "kind of magick" is less noticeable in Gainsborough's grand manor portraits - though it is certainly there. British artists - and more to the point, their aristocratic patrons - were enamored of the magnificent portraits of Charles I and his court painted by Anthony van Dyck. Every rich detail - exactly true to life. That was expected of Gainsborough and he complied, as can be seen in several formal likenesses he painted of his daughters as they matured into young ladies.

Thomas Gainsborough, Mary and Margaret Gainsborough,

the Artist's Daughters at their Drawing, C. 1763

The 1763 oil on canvas, subtitled The Artist's Daughter, at their Drawing is especially evocative of Van Dyck's influence. Looking at this marvelous work helps us understand why Gainsborough spoke of the Flemish master with his dying words, "Van Dyck was right."

Gainsborough looked at much more than surface details as we see in the portrait he painted of his sister Sarah, around 1777-79. Sarah Dupont (1715-1795) was well into her "sixties" by the time her brother painted her. The bloom had long faded from her looks, but perceptive intelligence, dignity and integrity beam from her eyes.

Thomas Gainsborough, Sarah Dupont, the Artist's Sister, c. 1777–9

All these traits in combination make for a lively and aware person - a person of inner beauty. This is the person Thomas Gainsborough saw and painted nearly two and a half centuries ago.

What he saw in his sister, Sarah, Gainsborough saw and painted in his other family members. Their portraits, on display at the Princeton University Museum of Art, speak to human values which may be glimpsed on the faces of those we know and love, if - like Thomas Gainsborough - we look hard enough to see.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Original photo by Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved

Images courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum, the Art Institue of Chicago and the Yale Center for British Art

Introductory Image: Thomas Gainsborough( British, 1727-1788) The Painter’s Daughters, Playing with a Cat, 1760-61. Oil on canvas: 75.6  x 62.9cm. (29 3/4 × 24 3/4 in.) National Gallery, London. Accession Number: NG3812

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788), completed by Gainsborough Dupont, (British, 1754–1797) Self -portrait, mid-1770s and 1790. Oil on canvas: 76.6 × 63.5 cm (30 3/16 × 25 in.) The Samuel Courtland Trust. The Courtauld Gallery, London

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788) Humphrey Gainsborough, the Artist's Brother, early 1770s. Oil on canvas: 59.7 × 49.5 cm (23 1/2 × 19 1/2 in.) Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788) Margaret Gainsborough, the Artist’s Wife, ca. 1777. Oil on canvas: 76.6 × 63.8 cm (30 3/16 × 25  1/8 in.) The Samuel Courtauld Trust. The Courtauld Gallery, London

Thomas Gainsborough( English, 1727–1788) The Artist with his Wife Margaret and Eldest Daughter Mary, 1748? Oil on canvas: 92.1 × 70.5 cm (36 1/4 × 27 3/4 in.) The National Gallery, London. Acquired under the acceptance-in-lieu scheme at the wish of Sybil, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, in memory of her brother, Sir Philip Sassoon, 1994

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) View of the entrance to the Gainsborough's Family Album exhibition,  Princeton University Museum of Art, 2019.

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788) Mary and Margaret Gainsborough, the Artist's Daughters, c. 1760–1. Oil on canvas: 40.6 × 58.4 cm (16 × 23 in.) Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by John Forster

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788) Mary and Margaret Gainsborough, the Artist's Daughters, at their Drawing, c. 1763–4. Oil on canvas: 127.3 × 101.7 cm (50 1/8 × 40 1/16 in.) Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Museum purchase, 1917.181

Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788) Sarah Dupont, the Artist's Sister, c. 1777–9 Oil on canvas: 77.2 × 64.5 cm (30 3/8 × 25 3/8 in.) The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection; through prior gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Denison B. Hull, Mr. and Mrs. William Kimball, and Mrs. Charles McCulloch, 1987.13