Mrs. Hugh Morgan and Her Daughter

Kauffmann's portrait of Mrs. Hugh Morgan and Her Daughter from around 1771 exemplifies the intimate mother-and-child portraiture she excelled at during her London years. Kauffmann was one of the two female founding members of the Royal Academy (with Mary Moser) and the most celebrated female painter in Europe, her combination of classical history painting and fashionable portraiture making her a uniquely prominent figure in the male-dominated art world. Her female and family portraits brought a warmth and intimacy to the genre that was specifically associated with her gender in contemporary criticism — sometimes as praise, sometimes as condescension — but always as a defining characteristic of her distinctive contribution.

Kauffmann's oil on canvas features her characteristic soft, warm palette and graceful figure arrangement, with the tender interaction between mother and daughter rendered in the refined neoclassical style that defined her portraiture.