Lady Frances Finch

In 1781, after a six-week trip to Holland and Flanders, where he evidently went to study the work of Rubens, Reynolds returned to his portrait practice in London with a new appreciation of naturalism. The effect of his study of Rubens can be seen in this portrait of Lady Frances Finch, in which the artist places his sitter, relaxed and comfortable, in a wooded setting with none of the classical allusions that were his trademark. Lady Frances (1761–1838), daughter of the 3rd Earl of Aylesford (1715–1777), was twenty-one at the time the portrait was completed. The final sitting is recorded in March 1782 and by September that same year Lady Frances had married George Legge, Lord Lewisham, and had thus become Lady Lewisham, Countess of Dartmouth. Lady Frances's aristocratic background is not immediately apparent in the informality of the pose and in the proximity of the sitter to the picture plane.

Placing a female sitter in a natural rather than a domestic setting was increasingly popular with eighteenth century artists as they responded to the fashion, prevalent in literature also, to associate certain qualities of nature with a virtuous character. Poets and novelists explored the significance of nature and identified its appreciation as a mark of refinement and sensibility. James Thomson (1700–1748), for example, noted nature's role in promoting virtue and social harmony, and remarked in the preface to one of his poems: 'I know of no subject more elevating ... more ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment, than the works of Nature'. He went on to claim that nature 'enlarges and transports the soul' (J. Thomson, preface to Winter: A Poem, 3rd edn, London, 1726, p. 15). The 'quality' of the natural environment was also of considerable importance to artists and writers and, although the setting for this painting was produced in Reynolds's studio, the landscape possibly alludes to the Aylesford estate in Warwickshire, where the grounds had been designed by 'Capability' Brown to have the irregular features and appearance required of a 'picturesque' landscape.

The capacity to feel exquisite sentiments and heightened emotions was a distinctive feature of the eighteenth-century lady of sensibility, and one way to elicit such emotions was through the contemplation of nature. Lady Frances is depicted leaning casually against a tree and engaged in obvious reverie, the subject of which is very likely her surroundings. Reinforcing this idea of the sitter as a woman of sensibility is the blush that is apparent on Lady Frances's cheeks. At one level the blush could simply be the result of an invigorating walk in the woods. At another level, however, a blushing countenance was synonymous with virtue. One critic noted that 'the blush comes forth as an emanation of an intrinsic purity and loveliness, and diffuses through the human form a tinge of the angelic nature' (D. Webb, An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting, and the Merits of the Most Celebrated Painters, Ancient and Modern, London, 1760, p. 73). To his credit, Reynolds has not painted an ethereal being, but a dignified and poised woman, at ease in her surroundings. The characteristic qualities of Reynolds's work in the early 1780s are all evident here, from the confident and open handling of the paint to the fluency and harmonious balancing of light and shade. Another form of balance is achieved by Reynolds's acknowledgement of contemporary trends in the portrayal of women, while successfully integrating them with his own direct and naturalistic portrait style.

Text by Jennifer Jones-O’Neill from European Masterpieces: six centuries of paintings from the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (exh. cat.), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2000, p. 114.