Shown from the waist up, a young, pale-skinned woman with her gray hair piled high atop her head is lit starkly against a dark background in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s shoulders are angled to our left. Her face is square to us, but she looks off to our right from the corners of her eyes, which are gray rimmed with golden brown around the pupils. She has a thin face, smooth cheeks, a bow-shaped pink mouth, and a narrow chin. Her hair is mostly swept up high under a bank of pearl-white feathers and some sparkling ornaments. A few ringlets hang down the back of her neck. The…
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Mrs. Paul Cobb Methuen

Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727 - 1788)

c. 1776/1777

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 84 x 71 cm (33 1/16 x 27 15/16 in.)
Culture
British
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CAB
Credit line
Widener Collection
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

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