Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Thomas Gainsborough·1785-1787
Historical Context
Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, painted between 1785 and 1787 and among the finest examples of Gainsborough's late London manner, depicts Elizabeth Linley Sheridan as a vision of natural grace within a windswept parkland setting. Elizabeth Linley had been celebrated from childhood as one of England's finest singers before her marriage to the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan in 1773 effectively ended her performing career. By the mid-1780s she was a celebrated beauty in London society, and Gainsborough's portrait captures her in a composition that integrates figure and landscape with the seemingly effortless naturalness that distinguished his work from Reynolds's more architecturally staged portraits. The loose, feathery brushwork of the dress and the animated sky reflect the increasing freedom of his late technique, and the painting's silvery tonality — a characteristic of his final decade — gives the whole image an atmospheric shimmer. The National Gallery of Art in Washington acquired the work as part of the Mellon gift and holds it as one of its finest examples of Georgian portraiture.
Technical Analysis
The painting epitomizes Gainsborough's late style with its fluid integration of figure and landscape. Feathery brushwork in the trees and sky echoes the delicate treatment of the sitter's hair and costume, creating a unified atmospheric envelope.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the windswept landscape setting — the trees bending behind Elizabeth Sheridan echo the movement of her clothing and hair, Gainsborough integrating figure and landscape into a unified atmospheric harmony.
- ◆Notice the feathery brushwork unifying the sitter's hair and the foliage behind her — Gainsborough uses a similar touch for both, making the boundary between portrait and landscape atmospheric rather than sharp.
- ◆Observe the white dress rendered with quick, feathery strokes that suggest muslin without laboriously describing it — Gainsborough's characteristic economy of means in rendering white fabric.
- ◆Find the bench or landscape seat — the compositional element that explains Elizabeth Sheridan's relaxed, outdoors pose, connecting her to the landscape setting rather than a formal interior.
Provenance
The Hon. Mrs. Edward Bouverie [1750-1825, later Lady Robert Spencer], a friend of the sitter, Delapré Abbey, Northampton; by descent to her grandson, General Everard Bouverie [1789-1871]; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 2 March 1872, no. 110);[1] purchased by Alfred de Rothschild [1842-1918] for his father, Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild [1808-1879], Gunnersbury, Middlesex; by inheritance to his son, Nathaniel, 1st lord Rothschild [1840-1915]; by inheritance to his widow, Emma, Lady Rothschild; by inheritance to her nephew, Nathaniel Mayer Victor, called Victor, 3rd baron and later 3rd lord Rothschild [1910-1990];[2] sold 1936 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); purchased 26 April 1937 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA. [1] The painting was added to the sale the day before by Edward Playdell-Bouverie, General Bouverie's nephew and executor, and it does not appear in the printed catalogue. Michael Hall, curator to Edmund de Rothschild kindly provided this detail; see his "Rothschild Picture Provenances" from 1999 and letter of 27 February 2002, in NGA curatorial files. [2] Details of the Rothschild family inheritance were kindly provided by Michael Hall (see note 1); he cites relevant documents in The Rothschild Archive, London.
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