The Braddyll Family

Reynolds's The Braddyll Family from 1789, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, is one of his last major group portraits, painted when the seventy-six-year-old artist was losing his sight. The painting depicts a fashionable young family from Lancashire in a landscape setting with the informal, naturalistic arrangement that characterized Reynolds's approach to family portraiture. Despite his failing vision, Reynolds maintained his ability to orchestrate complex compositions with the warmth and dignity that defined his career.

Reynolds groups the family with characteristic informality in a landscape setting. Despite the technical challenges of his declining eyesight, the painting maintains the warm palette and the graceful compositional balance of his earlier family portraits.