Thomas Gainsborough, 'The Painter's Daughters with a Cat', probably about 1760-1

Gainsborough is known to have painted six double portraits of his daughters Mary and Margaret, as well as separate portraits of each of them, between about 1756 and 1770. The Painters Daughter’s chasing a Butterfly is probably the earliest of these double portraits. The Painter’s Daughters with a Cat is likely to have been painted in Bath a year or so after the family moved there in late 1759.

Here, Mary appears to be about ten or eleven years old, and Margaret about eight or nine. Margaret leans her head back against her sister’s shoulder as she cradles their cat in her arms. The sketched cat has been partly painted out with a different yellow than the one Gainsborough used for Mary’s dress. This may have been to make it less distracting when it became clear the painting would never be finished. Mary rests her cheek against Margaret’s forehead, her arms wrapped around her sister, partly to help her with the writhing cat – whose tail she appears to pull – but also, it seems, with love and protection for her little sister. Their father captures this moving gesture of tenderness.

After priming his canvas, Gainsborough drew the subject in white chalk or pastel, working swiftly and directly on the pinkish-brown ground. The cat held in Margaret’s clasped hands is very lightly sketched in dark brushstrokes. Expressive, fluid touches of paint build up the forms with colour, light and dark rather than with line. Although the faces have been painted, most of the picture is left unfinished. The feathery pattern of gold, blue and grey brushstrokes that surrounds the girls seems to suggest storm clouds, sun and woodland, creating a decorative backdrop that feels emotionally charged, atmospheric and timeless.

Gainsborough paints his daughters in attitudes that are natural to them and familiar to him. No other portrait of this date conveys so strongly the sense that it is painted from life. The result is very different from Gainsborough’s commissioned portraits of children whom he did not know so well. In those paintings he expresses children’s youthful charm, social confidence and financial security. In The Painter’s Daughters with a Cat, Gainsborough observes his own daughters with a moving insight that comes from knowing them intimately and understanding their vulnerability.

A lithograph of the picture was published by Richard Lane in about 1827 after Mary’s death. It reverses the image and emphasises the children’s vulnerability with the invented title The Orphans. The cat has been omitted and the sketchy details completed in such a way that much of the moving naturalism of Gainsborough’s original painting has been lost.