page_title: Mr and Mrs Andrews
section_title: Sitters and setting
hierarchical_section_title: Mr and Mrs Andrews / Sitters and setting
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Mr and Mrs Carter of Bullingdon House [or Ballington Hall per the National Gallery], Bulmer, Essex. These were the parents of Mrs Andrews in Mr and Mrs Andrews in the National Gallery
context_page_description: Mr and Mrs Andrews is an oil on canvas portrait of about 1750 by Thomas Gainsborough, now in the National Gallery, London. Today it is one of his most famous works, but it remained in the family of the sitters until 1960 and was very little known before it appeared in an exhibition in Ipswich in 1927, after which it was regularly requested for other exhibitions in Britain and abroad, and praised by critics for its charm and freshness. By the post-war years its iconic status was established, and it was one of four paintings chosen to represent British art in an exhibition in Paris celebrating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Soon the painting began to receive hostile scrutiny as a paradigm of the paternalist and capitalist society of 18th-century England, but it remains a firm popular favourite.
  The work is an unusual combination of two common types of painting of the period: a double portrait, here of a recently married couple, Robert and Frances Andrews, as well as a landscape view of the English countryside.
context_section_description: Robert Andrews, the male sitter, was a member of the landed gentry, and this is very much apparent in Gainsborough's work. Although it is probable the family money came from being a landlord, Robert's father also lent substantial amounts of money, particularly to other gentry, at significant interest rates. This included the sum of £30,000 to Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1743, for which he became Remembrancer. He had a London house in Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, and also owned ships and engaged in trade with the colonies of the British Empire. Robert himself was born in Bulmer, Essex in 1725, and after attending Sudbury Grammar School at the same time as Gainsborough (two years younger) did, went on to University College, Oxford. His father purchased him an estate, and secured a bride, in a successful attempt to further integrate Robert into the upper classes. In 1763, after his father's death, he would take over the family business.  By 1750 he owned almost 3,000 acres, including most of the land visible in the painting.   
  His wife sitting beside him is Frances Mary Carter, who was brought up in the same parish of Bulmer, and was "not quite the girl next door, but probably the nearest marriageable girl of his own class".  She was betrothed to Andrews at 15 or 16 years old. They were married in Sudbury, on 10 November 1748: he was 22, she 16. Her father also owned businesses as well as property, and had a "share of a house in the City of London" as well as a country base at Ballingdon Hall, just over the River Stour from Sudbury, and so then in Essex.  Her family had made their money in the drapery business, and by buying the estate avoided the collapse of the textile industry.
  The Andrews' estate, Auberies, in Bulmer Tye, North Essex, is just some four miles from Sudbury, and bordered Frances' father's Ballingdon estate. It was probably part of her dowry or bought with it, and had been bought between their marriage and when the painting was done. The church glimpsed in the middle of the work is All Saints, Sudbury, where the couple had been married. The small tower in the left background is that of Holy Trinity Church in Long Melford. On the right hand side the barns of the home farm of Frances's childhood home at Ballington Hall can be seen; such an identifiable and accurately depicted location is unusual in Gainsborough's work, and was probably a specific request of the sitters.  Their house, also called Auberies, would be in their sight in the portrait, behind the viewer to his right, and much closer than the picture implies.  The couple had nine children, and when Frances Andrews died at 48 in 1780, Robert remarried; he died in 1806 at 80.  
   The couple are buried in the churchyard of St. Andrew's Church in Bulmer, whilst a memorial to them hangs in the church itself.
  The Andrews wear different dress, but both are more equal in their informality than many observers have thought. Robert is as informal as a man in his position was likely to be seen, even on his own estate, in a loose hunting coat with dangling bags for gunpowder and shot. Frances wears an outfit which in fact is an informal summer suit (as we would now call it) with a separate skirt and jacket, not a dress, of a light blue similar to those that Gainsborough often gave his early female sitters, including her mother, and which may not represent any actual garment of that colour. She wears informal mules and a straw hat. However, their poses are certainly different, with Robert's nonchalant pose not matched by Frances, who is "sitting bolt upright". Apart from considerations of corsetry, and the poise expected of ladies, her figure was probably painted from a dressed artist's mannequin. The rococo bench on which she sits must be made of wood at this date, and it is thought that this was an invention of Gainsborough's, drawing on his period with Gravelot.
  Gainsborough had painted (probably in London) Frances's parents in his Mr and Mrs Carter of Bullingdon House, Bulmer, Essex in about 1747–1748 (now Tate Britain). This painting makes an interesting co
caption: Mrs Andrews' parents, also by Gainsborough: Portrait of Mr and Mrs Carter (c. 1747–1748), 91 x 71 cm
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