Frances Bankes, Lady Brownlow (1756 – 1847) with her Son the Hon. John Cust, later 1st Earl Brownlow, GCH, FRS, MP (1779-1853)

George Romney's 1783 portrait of Frances Bankes, Lady Brownlow, with her son John Cust — later 1st Earl Brownlow — captures the warm maternal intimacy that was Romney's specialty in his most successful years. Romney was second only to Reynolds and Gainsborough among English portraitists in the 1780s, his reputation built on a warmth and naturalism that appealed to the same wealthy classes his rivals served. Lady Brownlow holds her young son with the relaxed affection Romney brought to his best mother-and-child portraits, the boy's lively expression contrasting with his mother's composed elegance.

Romney's oil technique is characteristically warm and fluid: flesh tones built in transparent layers over a warm ground, drapery handled with broad, confident strokes. The composition is informal and pyramidal, the mother-son relationship expressed through physical proximity and interlocking glances. The landscape background is softly painted.