The Masters Gawler

Reynolds painted The Masters Gawler around 1777, a double portrait of young brothers that demonstrates his sustained command of the child portrait format that had produced some of his most celebrated fancy pictures. The Gawler family were connected to the Wiltshire and west-country gentry whose patronage Reynolds maintained throughout his career alongside his more celebrated London commissions. Reynolds's treatment of children in pairs drew on both the long tradition of child portraiture in European art — Van Dyck's studies of the royal children provided the most prestigious English precedent — and on his own direct observation of how children relate to each other in unguarded moments. The Birmingham Museums Trust holds this canvas alongside several other Reynolds works, reflecting the West Midlands institution's significant accumulation of British portraiture. Reynolds's child portraits of the 1770s — including The Strawberry Girl, The Infant Samuel, and Miss Jane Bowles — represent the peak of his engagement with childhood as a subject, and The Masters Gawler, though less celebrated, participates in the same productive exploration of observed childhood naturalness.

The children are rendered with warm palette and engaging vitality. Reynolds's handling captures youthful energy within elegant composition.