Artwork · 18th century · Thomas Gainsborough

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Queen Charlotte

Thomas Gainsborough1788Oil on canvas60.3 × 44.5 cm

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At a glance

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Queen Charlotte of Britain, shown from the chest up inside a dark painted oval, wears her hair piled high under a white lace cap.
The Met describes it as Thomas Gainsborough's own replica of the portrait of the queen he painted at Windsor Castle in 1782.
Up close the paint is a scatter of loose strokes. Step back and they pull together into lace, pearls, and silk.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Start with her face. Her gray-blue eyes do not meet ours. They slide off toward the left side of the picture. A light pink sits on her cheeks, and her lips are a clear, bright red. The corners of her mouth lift a little, as if someone just said something worth hearing.
Zoom in on the cap. Gainsborough did not paint a single thread of lace. He swept brown, gray, and white paint around in loose curls. Close up it looks like smoke. From a few steps away it becomes airy fabric and powdered hair.
Look at the band around her neck. Rows of tiny white and red dots run across it. Instead of drawing each pearl as a round bead, he tapped in points of paint and let them sparkle.
Follow the thin line down the middle of her chest to its end. A small jewel hangs there. It is only a few drops of white and a few brown dabs, yet it reads as a stone catching the light.
Now look at the black lace over her left shoulder, on our right. Gainsborough scribbled wavy black lines with a loaded brush to make the frilled edge. The brown ground showing through gives the feel of thin layers of fabric.

When it was painted

In September 1782, Gainsborough was fifty-five and a much sought-after portrait painter in London, living in a grand house on Pall Mall. That autumn he went to Windsor Castle. His job was to paint the king, George III, the thirty-eight-year-old Queen Charlotte, and thirteen of their children, each in a separate oval. There were fifteen portraits in all, and the Royal Collection believes the queen probably commissioned them.

It was a sad autumn at Windsor. The youngest prince, Alfred, had died that August, before his second birthday. Yet the series includes his portrait too. Royal records say Gainsborough painted it from remembrance.

The next spring, the fifteen ovals went to the Royal Academy exhibition. In an April 1783 letter, Gainsborough gave careful directions: hang them in three rows of five, at eye level. The Met explains that when those instructions were ignored, it led to his withdrawal from the Academy's exhibitions. Afterward the portraits hung in the queen's rooms at Buckingham House.

This canvas is a second version of the queen's portrait, painted by Gainsborough himself. It later joined the collection of the American banker Jules Bache and came to the Metropolitan Museum with his collection in 1949.

Look at her eyes once more. Gainsborough caught that sideways glance, a queen turning for just a moment, in a few thin strokes of paint.

The painter

Thomas Gainsborough

1727–1788

All paintings by Thomas Gainsborough →

More by the same painter

Wooded Upland Landscapeprobably 1783

Cottage Children (The Wood Gatherers)1787

Questions to think about

Look for itCan you count how many rows of white and red dots make up her necklace?
Why?Why do you think Gainsborough left the lace and jewels as loose strokes instead of painting every detail?
What about you?Gainsborough walked away from an exhibition over how his paintings were hung. When something you made is shown in a way you did not want, how far should you insist on doing it your way?

Same period