Thomas GainsboroughBritish, 1727–1788Mr and Mrs Andrews
May one see it?
Unknown: the museum keeps its counsel
The National Gallery
London, United Kingdom
The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.
- In this state since
- Sep 29, 2026
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the painting
Mr and Mrs Andrews is an oil on canvas portrait of about 1750 by Thomas Gainsborough, now in the National Gallery, London. Today it is one of his most famous works, but it remained in the family of the sitters until 1960 and was very little known before it appeared in an exhibition in Ipswich in 1927, after which it was regularly requested for other exhibitions in Britain and abroad, and praised by critics for its charm and freshness. By the post-war years its iconic status was established, and it was one of four paintings chosen to represent British art in an exhibition in Paris celebrating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Soon the painting began to receive hostile scrutiny as a paradigm of the paternalist and capitalist society of 18th-century England, but it remains a firm popular favourite.
Read on
The work is an unusual combination of two common types of painting of the period: a double portrait, here of a recently married couple, Robert and Frances Andrews, as well as a landscape view of the English countryside. Gainsborough's work mainly consisted of these two different genres, but their striking combination side-by-side in this extended horizontal format is unique in Gainsborough's oeuvre, and extremely rare for other painters. Conversation piece was the term for a group portrait that contained other elements and activities, but these normally showed more figures, seen engaged in some activity or in an interior, rather than a landscape empty of people.
Gainsborough was later famously given to complaining that well-paid portrait work kept him away from his true love of landscape painting, and his interest probably combined with that of his clients, a couple from two families whose main income was probably not from landowning, to make – more prominently than was normal in a portrait – a display of the country estate that had formed part of Mrs Andrews' dowry.
Particulars
- Accession number
- NG6301
Sources
- Wikidata · fetched 3 days ago
- Image: The National Gallery — Thomas Gainsborough · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Meanwhile, in the life of Thomas Gainsborough
The whole life1740s
Making a living in London: landscapes, restoration, prints
Landscapes interest the young man most — plant sketches from the 1740s survive. He earns his living with landscapes on commission, touches up old paintings, assists the engraver John Boydell, and helps Francis Hayman decorate the supper boxes in Vauxhall Gardens.
15 July 1746
Marriage to Margaret Burr
On 15 July 1746 Gainsborough marries Margaret Burr, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.
1748
His father dies; back to Sudbury
Gainsborough's father, John, dies in 1748. With no new commissions coming in London, the painter returns to Sudbury, to the house of his childhood.
c. 1749
Landscapes do not pay: a turn to portraiture
Gainsborough has always thought of himself as a landscape painter, but landscapes bring no income: in the England of the day they count as a “low genre”. Around 1749 he unites portrait and landscape in one composition for the first time, in “Mr and Mrs Andrews”.
31 January 1750
Daughter born: Mary Gainsborough Fischer
1750s
Portraits pay the bills: the example of Hogarth
Gainsborough's main income comes from portraits; in this genre he tries to follow Hogarth, caring more about likeness than about conveying the sitter's social standing. Around 1753, probably, he receives a flattering commission for a portrait of Admiral Vernon, and he paints many members of his own family — for example a self-portrait of 1754 in a tricorn hat.
