"The movement of her dress in conjunction with her frank gaze gives a sense of immediacy to the composition and expresses the animation of the sitter," says the Huntington Gallery blurb re the frothy loveliness of Thomas Lawrence's portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton, Pinkie (1794), paired at the Thornton Portrait Gallery with Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy. Fun fact: Moulton's younger brother Edward grew up to be Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tyrannical father.
Similarly to the movement of Pinkie's dress and the ribbons of her bonnet in the Lawrence portrait, the movement of light through Tiny's fur in the photographic image above — backlit by dazzling sunshine streaming into the studio late afternoon — "in conjunction with her frank gaze gives a sense of immediacy to the composition and expresses the animation of the sitter." Peaches and cream. Sugar and spice. Everything nice.
Update: Lots more peaches and cream, sugar and spice and everything nice at Modulator's Friday Ark #218.
Pure beauty sketched in fur! That's our Tiny.
That painting was in my bedroom when I was growing up, together with Blue Boy. It was nice to see it again!
Posted by: Gayle Miller | November 19, 2008 at 09:09 AM