“Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough

“Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough is a combination of a double portrait of a recently married couple plus a landscape view of the English countryside. Gainsborough’s work mainly consisted of these two different genres.

Still, this striking combination of detailed double portrait plus landscape, in an extended horizontal format is unique for Gainsborough and rare for that period of art. Gainsborough was about twenty-three when he painted Mr. and Mrs. Andrews in 1750.

This painting is one of Gainsborough’s most famous works, even though it had remained in a private family collection of the sitter’s inheritors until 1960 and was first exhibited in 1927.

Critics praised it for its charm and freshness from its very first exhibition, and its iconic status was established when it was selected as one of four paintings chosen to represent British art in a show in Paris in 1953.

Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, who surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century.

He preferred landscapes to portraits and is credited as one of the originators of the 18th-century British landscape school.

Robert Andrews

Robert Andrews, the male sitter, was a member of the landed gentry. Andrew’s family had a London house in Grosvenor Square in Mayfair and engaged in trade with the colonies of the British Empire.

His father purchased him this estate, and secured a bride, to place Robert securely into the upper classes. After his father’s death, Robert took over the family business.

Mrs. Andrews

Frances Mary Carter, sitting beside him in this portrait, was his equal in the class structure and was betrothed to Andrews at 15 years old. When they married, he was 22, she 16.

Her father owned a drapery business as well as property and had a share of a house in London.

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

• Title:            Mr. and Mrs. Andrews
• Artist:          Thomas Gainsborough
• Year:            1748 and 1749
• Medium:     Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Height: 70 cm (27.5 in); Width: 119 cm (46.8 in)
• Museum:    National Gallery, London

Thomas Gainsborough

• Name:          Thomas Gainsborough
• Birth:            1727 – Sudbury, Suffolk, England
• Died:            1788 (aged 61) – London, England
• Nationality:  British
• Notable Works
  • Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

Sister Wendy on “Naughty” Gainsborough

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH – MR AND MRS ANDREWS

Gainsborough’s Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

A Tour of the National Gallery

17th Century Paintings

• “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
• “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
• “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” by Diego Velázquez – 1618
• “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
• “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
• “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
• “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
• “The Courtyard of a House in Delft” by Pieter de Hooch – 1658
• “Self Portrait at the Age of 63″ by Rembrandt – 1669
• “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670

18th Century Paintings

• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
• “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
• “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
• “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
• “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
• “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782

19th Century Paintings

• “Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
• “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
• “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
• “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
• “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
• “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
• “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
• “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
• “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
• “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
• “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
• “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
• “Tiger in a Tropical Storm” by Henri Rousseau – 1891
• “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
• “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898

20th Century Paintings

• “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir –  1904
• “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
• Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by  Paul Cézanne – 1905
• “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows –  1912
• “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916

Thomas Gainsborough Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

Gainsborough’s Mr & Mrs. Andrews

Thomas Gainsborough- Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

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“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
– English Proverb

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Photo Credit: 1) Thomas Gainsborough [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons