Portrait of Mrs Luther

Reynolds painted Mrs. Luther around 1766, a society portrait that exemplifies the standard of his mature female portraiture — the formula he had refined over fifteen years of post-Italian practice and would maintain with remarkable consistency through the following two decades. The painting's strength lies in precisely what distinguishes all Reynolds's better work from his journeyman output: the quality of characterization that makes the sitter appear as an individual rather than as a representative of a type. Reynolds's female portraits of the mid-1760s draw on a now-fully-internalized synthesis of Italian compositional lessons, Dutch tonal richness, and English directness of observation. By this date Reynolds had been president of The Club for two years — the informal literary society that connected him with Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and others — and the intellectual stimulus of that extraordinary circle fed into his best portrait work. The Birmingham Museums Trust's holding of this canvas reflects that institution's accumulation of British portraiture, particularly works with Midlands connections or provenance.

The portrait is rendered with experimental pigments that characterizes Joshua Reynolds's best work. Oil on canvas provides a rich ground for the subtle gradations of flesh tone and the textural contrasts between skin, fabric, and background that give the image its convincing presence.