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Oil painting of woman in blue dress holding flower
Close up of face of woman in oil painting
Close up of flower in oil painting of woman
#224: By Ian Wardropper, Director Transcript

This is the earliest portrait by Thomas Gainsborough in the Frick’s collection, probably painted while the artist was living in Ipswich, in eastern England, before he moved to more cosmopolitan centers like Bath and, eventually, London. In Ipswich, he received commissions to paint portraits of local elites like Sarah, Lady Innes—who appears to have spent the entirety of her short life in the area, leaving behind two young daughters at her death. This portrait represents a transitional style, between Gainsborough’s earliest portraits of relatively stiff, doll-life figures, and the more naturalistic portraits, with freer handling of paint, for which he would become extremely popular in the maturity of his career.

Sarah, Lady Innes

 (British, 1727–1788)
Dateca. 1757
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions40 x 28 5/8 in. (101.6 x 72.7 cm)
Credit LineHenry Clay Frick Bequest
Accession number1914.1.58
Collection History

Innes (1876). G. Fairholme. De la Rue and others sale, June 16, 1911, Christie’s, Lot 79, sold for £3,780 to Colnaghi. J. H. Dunn. Knoedler. Frick, 1914.

Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German. Volume I. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.

Not On View
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