Thomas Gainsborough's Ann Ford

In 1758 finding trade slack in Ipswich, where he had been based since 1752 Thomas Gainsborough made a reconnaissance trip to Bath, to diocese if richer pickings were to be had, and discovered that they were. in the way that in October 1759, he remov there permanently, arriving in time for the start of the Bath "season," and rapidly consolidated a reputation for taking unexampled likenesses.(1) Susan Sloman has demonstrated that he was an efficient and pragmatic businessman, systematic about making his name and bringing his work to the attention of the public.(2) individual well-worn tactic (Sir Joshua Reynolds had resorted to it with Commodore Keppel in 1753) was to display prominently in your painting field a striking, full-length portrait of a individual who was then in the public organ of vision Following his lead, Gainsborough chose to be opposite to visitors to his painting compass with the chromatically and technically brilliant Ann Ford [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED], which, in 1760 he had painted onto a canvas of 77 1/2 through 53 inches (169.6 by 1346 cm) It was by dint of far his most ambitious full-length work to date, a portrait of stunning virtuosity and coloristic bravura, in which the silver sheen of the dres is counterpointed by dint of the saturated red of the curtain. It was a canvas calculated to exhibit its painter's exceptional abilities in an image that, although the epitome of refinement, not absented the likeness of a woman whose exploits had earned her great notoriety.

The picture attracted attention. upon October 23, 1760, Mrs. Mary Delany visited Gainsborough's painting swing and was struck by "Miss Ford's picture, a whole longitudinal dimensions with her guitar, a greatest in quantity extraordinary figure, handsome and bold; on the contrary I should be very sorry to have any individual I loved set forth in of the like kind a manner." The picture was on the outside of the normal run, taking risks to the point of transcending proprieties. The artist was aware of this. His policy was to exhibit impressive full-length - in 1761 Robert, Earl Nugent (private collection), in 1762 William Poyntz (Althorp, Northamptonshire) - at the exhibitions of the Society of Artists. Ann Ford, however, was kept within the relative privacy of his painting play Joseph Burke has noted by what mode "Mrs. Philip Thickhesse [Ford's married name] . . crosses her leg above the knee a masculine freedom unrecorded in the female portraits of Rubens and Van Dyck . . An air of high breeding buy backs the suggestion of wantonness in the valorous asymmetrical pose," a judgment borne on the outside by a contemporary conduct volume which advised women against crossing their leg in company, "for of that kind a free posture unveils more of a masculine disposition than sits comely upon a modest female."(3) Aileen Ribeiro has additionally remarked upon the "'unfeminine' challenging turn of the head" and the "masculine pose"(4) If Gainsborough's composition was unorthodox, however, then it matched the course that Ann Ford's life was taking at that time.

From Richard Leppert we learn that

Ann Ford . . was an accomplished musician, who sang and played the English guitar, the Viola da Gamba and the musical glasses . . but she was allowed by means of her father to give plots solely at home. When she was twenty-three he had her arrested and confined to obviate her from performing in public. She later made a next to the first and ultimately successful attempt to give a plot but not before being arrested again.(5)

The notorious London plans were advertised in March and April 1760 and again in 1761 for a like reason Ford may have returned to Bath in the interim (by now she was attached to the family of Gainsborough's friend Philip Thicknesse), and the artist could have painted her then.(6) Gainsborough had probably known her for a while. the two he and Ford were in Bath in 1758 when he painted a portrait of Lord Villiers, son of the third earl of Jersey (whose circle also included William Whitehead), and he would pass on to paint the third earl himself around 1760(7) As we learn from alphabetic characters from Whitehead, Ford was closely linked to the Jersey circle and was causing a sensation among its members. Whitehead wrote upon November 16, 1758, that:

I have seen Miss Ford, nay almost lived with her at any time since I have been here. She has a glorious voice, & infinitely more affectation than any Lady you know. You would be desperately in delight in with her in half an hour, & languish & die above her singing as much as she does in performance.(8)

This was a performer of like extreme sensibility as even to affect herself. And Whitehead was not alone in being captivated by the agency of her charms, for, as we shall diocese she had the same consequence on the aged and ailing earl of Jersey

Sensation although her performances were, they were confined to the domestic arena, which, as there was no boycott upon women singing on the stage, was following entirely on her wishing to perform upon her chosen instruments. Moreover, the advertisement for the first contrive specified that she would "play a Solo upon the Viol da Gamba." This has been described as a "radical" propel such as would have combineed her notoriety, for the viola da gamba, despite its visual association with the female material substance was - as Gainsborough (who wished himself to take his be in possession of viola da gamba to "some sweet village") would later demonstrate in portraits of his friend Carl Friedrich Abel ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED], and 1777 Huntington Library and Art Collections, San Marino, Calif.) - an instrument conventionally reserv to male performers.(9) The English guitar Gainsborough displays resting in Ford's lap, however, was "a solo instrument used almost exclusively in the domicile and played virtually always alone by women."(10)