The Byam Family

Luisa and George Byam walk arm in arm through an evening landscape, which is animated by a stream meandering past a distant cottage. They were painted shortly after their marriage in 1760.

Mr and Mrs Byam's daughter Selina, wearing a white muslin frock and red shoes, was added by the artist a few years later. At the same time he also changed Mrs Byam's informal silk gown from pink to rich blue.

This silk gown, along with her mother-of-pearl earrings, is suggestive of the Byam's vast wealth, which was amassed from sugar plantations in the West Indies.