Porträt der Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton (1733-1790)

Elizabeth Gunning (1733–1790) was among the most celebrated beauties of her generation, a phenomenon of the mid-eighteenth-century British social world. Born in Ireland to a family of limited means, she and her sister Maria became sensations in London society through their extraordinary looks, both making spectacular marriages — Elizabeth to the Duke of Hamilton in 1752 and later to the Duke of Argyll. Hamilton's 1752 portrait, held at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, captures her in the immediate aftermath of her first marriage, when her celebrity was at its zenith. The portrait is an early work by Hamilton — he was in his mid-twenties — and reflects the British aristocratic portraiture conventions of the moment rather than the Neoclassical manner he would develop in Rome.

Hamilton renders the celebrated beauty with the conventional mid-century British formula: three-quarter length, fashionable dress, controlled expression, smooth academic finish. The challenge of portraying a famous beauty is that the painter must satisfy both the sitter's vanity and the social consensus about what constituted her remarkable looks.