Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst

Thomas Gainsborough painted Jeffrey Amherst around 1785, depicting the Field Marshal who had commanded British forces in North America during the Seven Years' War and the capture of Canada. By the time of the portrait Amherst was a venerable figure in British military history, his most celebrated military campaigns three decades in the past. Gainsborough's late style — the feathery, atmospheric brushwork that dissolved form in light — gives the aging field marshal a quality of slightly dissolving grandeur, the technical boldness appropriate to Gainsborough's own late maturity.

Gainsborough renders the aged military leader with his characteristic warmth and atmospheric softness. The portrait balances the authority of military command with the gentle handling that distinguishes Gainsborough's approach from the more dramatic military portraits of his contemporaries.