Mrs Prudence Rix

Mrs Prudence Rix, painted around 1756 and now at Manchester Art Gallery, belongs to the relatively modest tier of Gainsborough's Suffolk professional-class commissions from the mid-1750s — solid, respectable portraits of provincial women whose social position was comfortable without being grand. The name Prudence, an uncommon choice even by Georgian standards, suggests a family with Nonconformist or dissenting connections, since Puritan virtue names like Prudence, Patience, and Temperance had persisted in dissenting communities long after they fell out of fashion among Anglicans. Gainsborough's Suffolk patronage included a significant proportion of Nonconformist families — Ipswich had a strong tradition of Protestant dissent — and his ability to serve both Anglican establishment and dissenting clients without apparent difficulty reflects the pragmatic indifference to religious distinction that characterized his professional approach. The Manchester Art Gallery's extensive collection of British portraiture places Mrs Rix in a context that allows her modest commission to be assessed within the full range of Georgian female portraiture, from Gainsborough's grandest full-length aristocratic portraits down to the informal documentary likenesses that constituted most of his actual output.

The portrait is handled with the careful finish that Gainsborough's provincial female clients expected, the face painted with sympathetic warmth and the costume with detailed precision. The overall impression is of quiet respectability rendered with more charm than the sitter might have found elsewhere.