“Portrait of the Artist’s Daughters”
Today, a double portrait painted with love and pride.
“Portrait of the Artist’s Daughters” is an oil on canvas painting made by the English portrait and landscape artist, Thomas Gainsborough, from 1763 to 1764. Gainsborough’s portraits added a touch of the fanciful rococo style to his portraits, which created a more romantic style of art. His most famous painting is “The Blue Boy”.
In this painting, Gainsborough paints a loving portrait of his two daughters, Mary and Margaret. They were around 14 and 12 years old at the time. Mary, the older of the two, is seated and looking straight at the viewer while Margaret looks off to the side. The two girls were the only children of Gainsborough and his wife, Margaret, to survive infancy. Gainsborough depicts them each holding an art portfolio with drawing papers shown within. Mary is holding a pen stylus. In the background, two Grecian statues are standing on top of the furniture to the left. They are presumably in his art studio.
As part of their education, Gainsborough taught his daughters how to draw and paint landscapes. He was optimistically hoping they would become artists in their own right when they grew up, which they did not. This was painted during Gainsborough’s time in Bath, England during which he became a highly sought after portrait artist.
Gainsborough aspired to be a landscape artist, but ended up working commissioned portraits which were much more financially reliable. Usually when he was not working on commissions, he was creating landscapes. In regard to painting portraits, he said that his daughters were his favorite subjects. He painted at least six double portraits of them as they were growing up. Other paintings that feature his two daughters include “The Painter’s Daughters Chasing a Butterfly” from circa 1756, “Portrait of the Artist’s Two Daughters” from circa 1758, “The Artist’s Daughters with a Cat” painted between 1759 and 1761, and “Margaret and Mary Gainsborough” from 1770 to 1774.
“Portrait of the Artist’s Daughters“, from 1763 to 1764, is currently in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the United States.
For more on Thomas Gainsborough, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
