Portrait of the Painter's Two Daughters

Portrait of the Painter's Two Daughters, painted around 1758 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, depicts Mary (born 1748) and Margaret (born 1752) Gainsborough in one of the most intimate works in his entire output — a family portrait made without commercial obligation, driven purely by a father's desire to preserve the image of his daughters at a specific moment in their childhood. Gainsborough painted his daughters several times throughout their youth, and these family portraits form a distinct category in his work: freed from the social obligations of commissioned portraiture, he could observe his subjects with the accumulated knowledge of continuous personal acquaintance rather than the single studio sitting that most commissioned portraits allowed. Mary and Margaret, shown here close together in the sisterly physical intimacy that Gainsborough always captured convincingly, would later become subjects of concern as they struggled with mental health difficulties in later life. The painting at the V&A belongs to the institution's major collection of Gainsborough family portraits, alongside the famous double portrait in the National Portrait Gallery that shows the daughters slightly older; together these works document Gainsborough's sustained engagement with childhood as a subject worthy of his most careful attention.

The intimate double portrait reveals Gainsborough at his most natural and unguarded, the two girls' faces painted with a warmth and delicacy that speaks of parental love. The composition is informal yet balanced, the sisters' relationship conveyed through their physical closeness and the subtle interplay of expressions.