Mr. and Mrs. Pleydell lived in a large country house in Dorset, southwest of London. Gainsborough painted them when he lived in Bath, and his skill at balancing artistic imagination with observed truth is extremely well represented in these portrayals. The pose of Mrs. Pleydell is ultimately derived from a figure in the seventeenth-century painter Anthony van Dyck’s great group portrait of the Pembroke family, but the shimmering blue underskirt and voluminous pink dress, with its frothy lace accents, illustrate Gainsborough’s awareness of and ability to depict contemporary fashion.

---