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Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

Joshua Reynolds • Painting, 1776, 237×145 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Portrait
Style of art: Rococo
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1776
Size: 237×145 cm
Artwork in collection: Smart and Beautiful Natalya Kandaurova
Artwork in selections: 8 selections

Description of the artwork «Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire»

The famous English beauty and socialite Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, Joshua Reynolds wrote more than once. In addition to the grand duchess portrait at the balustrade, known for her profile portrait with a little daughter in her lap, and approximately in 1759-61. Reynolds wrote as a child and Georgiana herself, accompanied by her mother ("Portrait of Countess Spencer with his daughter Georgiana").

The fame of the portrait of the Duchess of Devonshinska (its original is kept in the gallery of the Huntington Library, and the engraving of 1780 in the Rumyantsev Museum) is determined not so much by the skill of its performance as by the wide, with a taste of scandal, the popularity of the literary salon and the leader of the Whig political party.

The portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire bears all the features of aristocratic painting: the heroine, dressed in an elegant dress and with a front haircut, stands, leaning with one hand on the balustrade, and the other holds the folds of the dress. The landscape background and staircase railing are written out generally and fluently, since the landscape plays only a subordinate role in the chosen genre and in the work of Reynolds as a whole. It cannot be said that in this image of Georgiana Cavendish her individuality is conveyed in some special way: perhaps, in the duchess's gaze and a little sly look, her political and personal ambitions can be read.

Seven-eight years later, Thomas Gainsborough also wrote to the Duchess of Devonshire against the background of draperies and columns absolutely traditional for the parade portrait, however, the comparison of Georgiana’s portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds does not work in favor of the latter. Connoisseurs call Reynolds's creative style smooth and dryish as opposed to the freshness of Gainsborough's gaze. The reluctance of Reynolds in depicting the Duchess of Devonshire to invent something fundamentally new in color, composition or in methods of character disclosure also plays against the artist. Among his extremely numerous formal portraits, we will rather quickly calculate samples with a practically identical composition (see, for example, Isabella, Lady Beauchamp) or find very similar in color and / or cut to ivory-colored dresses with orange-brown trim (for example, portraits Mrs abington, Lady sanderlin, Diana sackville).

All this can be partly explained by the somewhat “conveyor-based” approach implemented by Reynolds workshop: in another year, up to a hundred paintings were published under the artist’s name and, as the researchers note, “Reynolds just gasped as part of the parade portrait”.

Author: Anna Yesterday
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