Snark and Sensitivity
When it comes to commissioned portraits, artists are generally meant to flatter their subjects. But in painting "Mr. and Mrs. Andrews," Thomas Gainsborough had other ideas.
When we view famous paintings or read great works of literature, it’s easy to be blinded by a creator’s “genius” and forget their humanity. But if the creation of art is the most human of instincts, then we must keep in mind that our favorite artists were, in fact, people—complete with all the emotions, triumphs, flaws, and sensitivities.
And, in the best cases, a sense of humor.
Thomas Gainsborough’s early masterpiece Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (1750) has fascinated viewers ever since it came out of hiding for an exhibition in 1927, and I would wager that this is because Gainsborough’s personal stamp of wittiness (or is it snark?) leaps from the canvas. Each time I revisit this painting, I’m struck by its unflattering portrayal of its subjects, unusual in the realm of portraiture.
Thomas Gainsborough (b. 1727, d. 1788) was the shining star of British Rococo, and commissioning a Gainsborough portrait was the ultimate status symbol. As the actor and playwright David Garrick commented in 1774, “His cranium is so crammed with genius of every kind that it is in danger of bursting upon you like a steam engine overcharged.”1
Born in Sudbury, Suffolk in 1727, he was already an apprentice in London by the age of thirteen, studying under the French engraver Hubert Gravelot. Gainsborough’s true love was landscapes, and remained so for his entire life; he painted the British countryside with attentive care, and he was particularly brilliant at capturing the movement of clouds.
But this was the 18th century, and painters who wished to make a steady living had to paint portraits of wealthy clients. This was especially true in Protestant countries, where the market for religious artwork had nearly evaporated.
Gainsborough came from a relatively modest background. His father was a weaver, who at one point ran into money troubles and received a loan from a local, affluent clothier named Bernard Carter. Bernard’s brother, William Carter, was a successful merchant whose daughter Frances would go on to marry Robert Andrews, a member of the landed gentry. Robert and Frances are the Mr. and Mrs. Andrews in Gainsborough’s painting, and Frances most likely would have known about her uncle’s loan to Gainsborough’s father.2
As art historian James Hamilton notes3 in Gainsborough: A Portrait:
Economic prosperity in eighteenth-century Britain was volatile and unreliable, a condition that Gainsborough experienced within his family during his youth. If that taught him anything, it was to be a single-minded opportunist, and to realise that painting had its own power: to create image, to make money, and to build friendship.
When Gainsborough sat to paint Robert and Frances Andrews, he had recently returned to Suffolk to work as an artist and had yet to become a darling of British society. That success wouldn’t arrive until he and his family moved to Bath, which had a more genteel population and had grown especially fashionable during the 1700s.4 In addition to his late father’s financial arrangement with Frances’s uncle, Gainsborough knew Robert from childhood. They both attended Sudbury Grammar School, though perhaps due to their different social classes, they never became friends.5
Initially, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews appears to be a statement of wealth. In a pioneering composition, Gainsborough positions his subjects to the left of the painting, the better to show off the thousands of acres in their possession. As always, Gainsborough’s love of the English countryside remains on display.
But the image grows peculiar when one examines the young couple. Upon closer inspection, Mrs. Andrews wears an expression of disdain:
Though she was seventeen or eighteen years old when she sat for this portrait, she has dark circles under her eyes, and she looks tired of something… or someone.
Is that someone Thomas Gainsborough? Is this meant to capture upper-class haughtiness, as the rich Mrs. Andrews looks down upon her lowly artist? Or, is this an indication of her feelings toward her husband?
It’s a common misconception that child marriage was normal in the “olden days.” In reality, most women in 18th century England married in their early twenties. The exception to the rule was the upper class—as in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, who were married at twenty and sixteen, respectively, upper class marriages served as economic and political arrangements and thus were more likely to be hurried at a younger age. Given the expression of contempt on Mrs. Andrews’s face, coupled with the stormy skies above the otherwise fertile landscape, it’s possible that Frances wasn’t too pleased with this arranged marriage.
The picture’s underlying commentary grows more pointed upon examining Mr. Andrews. His clothes are disheveled, his gun and bulging shot bag possess a phallic character, and he leans casually next to his stiff, uncomfortable wife. I can’t help but feel that Gainsborough is making fun of the couple.
It seems that Mr. and Mrs. Andrews picked up on the unflattering nature of Gainsborough’s portrayal, as the painting was never finished and remained out of public view for nearly two centuries. (Luckily for us, it was never destroyed.)
The part that remains unfinished is Mrs. Andrews’s lap, on which she appears to be grasping a bird’s tail. A dead pheasant, shot down by Mr. Andrews?
Maybe this was the final insult. It’s unimaginable that Mrs. Andrews would want to be seen with a bloody carcass on her sumptuously-rendered dress. Plucking the feathers off of a dead bird was a servant’s job, after all. Seeing this, I’m reminded of the fact that Frances came from new money: her family was among the growing cohort of industrialists who would upend Britain’s strict social hierarchy. Perhaps that bird served as a subtle reminder that despite her land and her money, she would never be a real aristocrat. Perhaps Gainsborough was calling her common.
Gainsborough would forget about Mr. and Mrs. Andrews as he went on to paint masterpieces like The Blue Boy (1770) and portraits of the aristocracy, including Queen Charlotte in 1781. He became a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts (1768), and soon, all of British high society was eager to be immortalized in his work. Even as Rococo fell out of fashion, one can see the influence of Gainsborough’s landscapes in the works of later British artists, including John Constable and J. M. W. Turner.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews remains a work of brilliant social commentary that embodies the tensions of a changing Britain. Despite whatever arrogance the Andrews may have possessed, it is a delicious twist that we only know who they are because of Gainsborough, and not the other way around.
“Thomas Gainsborough” in Art: The Definitive Visual History, ed. Andrew Graham Dixon (New York: DK, 2018), 263.
James Hamilton, Gainsborough: A Portrait (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2018), 96.
Hamilton, Gainsborough: A Portrait, 1.
“Thomas Gainsborough,” 263.
Hamilton, Gainsborough: A Portrait, 98.
You’ll know of John Berger’s reading of this painting?
Thanks! This was fascinating.