Thomas Gainsborough
Mr and Mrs Andrews
c. 1750
Painted by Thomas Gainsborough around 1750 shortly after the marriage of the young Suffolk squire Robert Andrews and his bride Frances Carter, 'Mr and Mrs Andrews' seats the newlyweds beneath a spreading oak with their freshly harvested wheat fields, oak woods, and English sky stretching out behind them. The picture is a rare early marriage of portrait and landscape, revealing both Gainsborough's sharp observational eye and the new landowning gentry's wish to be shown inseparable from their estates. Frances's lap is famously left unfinished — an omission that has prompted centuries of speculation.
Exhibition Venue
Image source: Added by operations team