Frances Susanna, Lady de Dunstanville

Thomas Gainsborough

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, a woman sits looking off into the distance in front of a deep, shadowy landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right, but she turns her oval face to the left to gaze off with brown eyes. Her upper lip is thin, and her lower lip is fuller. A cloud of ash-brown curls frames her face, and long locks fall over her shoulders. Her wide-brimmed black hat is set at a steep angle to our left. The hat has a white feather lying along the front edge and a pearl hanging from the top front of the brim. Her butter-yellow gown has translucent white ruffles along the low, scooped neckline and a strand of pearls tied at in a bow at the front of the chest. The puffy sleeves come just past the elbows and are similarly lined with ruffles and encircled with pearls. The overskirt drapes over a topaz-blue underskirt. The woman holds a feather in the hand resting in her lap. Her left elbow, to our right, is propped on a stone and that hand holds a gold-colored scarf up by her face. Deeply shaded trees and a murky blue sky fill the background. The portrait is loosely painted in the clothing and background.