Portrait of a Young Lady (formerly called 'Mrs Gainsborough')

The misidentification of this portrait as 'Mrs Gainsborough' reflects a persistent tendency in art history to project the painter's personal life onto unattributed works — a tendency that has complicated the cataloguing of Gainsborough's output throughout his career. Margaret Burr, whom Gainsborough married in 1746, was herself painted by him on several occasions, and the formal similarity between his wife's portraits and his ideal of English feminine beauty means that attractive young women in Bath period portraits were sometimes speculatively identified as Margaret. This portrait, now correctly described as an unidentified young woman, belongs to his early Bath period around 1758 when he was developing the luminous female portrait style that made his reputation. The Victoria and Albert Museum's holding connects the work to the institution's comprehensive survey of British art, where its place in Gainsborough's development can be assessed alongside other examples of his female portraiture from the same period. The pale complexion rendered in thin glazes over a warm ground, the light dress handled with the broken brushwork he was developing, and the natural bearing of the sitter — these together constitute the emerging Gainsborough formula that his Bath clientele would make famous.

The portrait exemplifies Gainsborough's gift for painting young women with natural, unforced beauty. The luminous skin tones and softly rendered hair create an impression of freshness and vitality, while the relaxed pose suggests genuine ease between painter and sitter.