Filial inspiration - nine paintings of the artist's daughters by Thomas Gainsborough

 

Circa 1760.

Circa 1758.

Circa 1756.

Circa 1763-64. (The odd highlight in the corner of Margaret's eye appears in every reproduction, so I have to assume this is also true of the actual painting.)

As can still be seen, Gainsborough first posed Margaret on the left side of the composition, facing her sister. 

Circa 1774.

Margaret, circa 1772.

Mary, 1777.

Margaret, circa 1777.

Mary, 1777.

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Gainsborough was devoted to his two daughters - Mary "Molly" Gainsborough Fischer (circa 31 January 1750 - 2 July 1826), and Margaret “Peggy” Gainsborough (circa 19 August 1751 - 18 December 1820) - and painted them frequently from childhood into their late twenties. He took care to ensure that they were well educated, sending them to the exclusive Blacklands School, Chelsea, and tutoring them in drawing and landscape painting; the younger sister, Margaret, also became an accomplished amateur musician. The elder sister, Mary, first showed signs of mental illness at an early age, and in 1780, against her father's wishes, she married Johann Christian Fischer, a well-known oboist and composer. Fischer, a friend of the artist, had apparently courted both sisters for some years. The marriage lasted only six months. The sisters continued to live with their parents, and when the latter died - Gainsborough in 1788, his wife a decade later - the now middle-aged women, left with an inheritance, remained together. Margaret, the younger sister, who had been affectionately nicknamed "the captain" by their father, and was the executor of both parent's wills, managed their household and finances and looked after her sister, who suffered with increasingly severe mental illness. Margaret passed away at the age of sixty-nine. Mary, without her sister to care for her, and suffering from delusions, spent the remaining six years of her life in an asylum - possibly Blacklands House, Chelsea - where she died at the age of seventy-six.