Mrs Siddons

In 1785 Sarah Siddons was the most famous tragic actress on the London stage, then playing Lady Macbeth to packed houses. A year earlier Joshua Reynolds had painted her enthroned as the Tragic Muse, all grandeur. Gainsborough did the opposite. He shows her off-stage, a fashionable woman in a blue-and-white striped gown, a black hat with feathers, a fox-fur muff in her lap, meeting your eye with the composure of someone used to a full theatre. He struggled only with her strong profile, and is said to have muttered, confound the nose, there is no end to it. The portrait was not commissioned. Gainsborough painted it hoping to sell it or have it engraved.