Thomas Gainsborough's Ann Ford

In 1758, finding trade slack in Ipswich, where he had been based since 1752, Thomas Gainsborough made a reconnaissance trip to Bath, to see if richer pickings were to be had, and discovered that they were. So, in October 1759, he removed there permanently, arriving in time for the start of the Bath "season," and rapidly consolidated a reputation for taking unexampled likenesses.(1) Susan Sloman has demonstrated that he was an efficient and pragmatic businessman, systematic about making his name and bringing his work to the attention of the public.(2) One well-worn tactic (Sir Joshua Reynolds had resorted to it with Commodore Keppel in 1753) was to display prominently in your painting room a striking, full-length portrait of a person who was then in the public eye. Following his lead, Gainsborough chose to confront visitors to his painting room with the chromatically and technically brilliant Ann Ford [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED], which, in 1760, he had painted onto a canvas of 77 1/2 by 53 inches (169.6 by 134.6 cm.). It was by far his most ambitious full-length work to date, a portrait of stunning virtuosity and coloristic bravura, in which the silver sheen of the dress is counterpointed by the saturated red of the curtain. It was a canvas calculated to exhibit its painter's exceptional abilities in an image that, although the epitome of refinement, presented the likeness of a woman whose exploits had earned her great notoriety.

The picture attracted attention. On October 23, 1760, Mrs. Mary Delany visited Gainsborough's painting room and was struck by "Miss Ford's picture, a whole length with her guitar, a most extraordinary figure, handsome and bold; but I should be very sorry to have any one I loved set forth in such a manner." The picture was out of the normal run, taking risks to the point of transcending proprieties. The artist was aware of this. His policy was to exhibit impressive full-lengths - in 1761 Robert, Earl Nugent (private collection), in 1762 William Poyntz (Althorp, Northamptonshire) - at the exhibitions of the Society of Artists. Ann Ford, however, was kept within the relative privacy of his painting room. Joseph Burke has noted how "Mrs. Philip Thickhesse [Ford's married name] . . . crosses her legs above the knee, a masculine freedom unrecorded in the female portraits of Rubens and Van Dyck. . . . An air of high breeding redeems the suggestion of wantonness in the bold asymmetrical pose," a judgment borne out by a contemporary conduct book, which advised women against crossing their legs in company, "for such a free posture unveils more of a masculine disposition than sits decent upon a modest female."(3) Aileen Ribeiro has additionally remarked on the "'unfeminine' challenging turn of the head" and the "masculine pose."(4) If Gainsborough's composition was unorthodox, however, then it matched the course that Ann Ford's life was taking at that time.

From Richard Leppert we learn that

Ann Ford . . . was an accomplished musician, who sang and played the English guitar, the Viola da Gamba and the musical glasses . . . but she was allowed by her father to give concerts solely at home. When she was twenty-three he had her arrested and confined to prevent her from performing in public. She later made a second and ultimately successful attempt to give a concert, but not before being arrested again.(5)

The notorious London concerts were advertised in March and April 1760, and again in 1761, so Ford may have returned to Bath in the interim (by now she was attached to the family of Gainsborough's friend Philip Thicknesse), and the artist could have painted her then.(6) Gainsborough had probably known her for a while. Both he and Ford were in Bath in 1758, when he painted a portrait of Lord Villiers, son of the third earl of Jersey (whose circle also included William Whitehead), and he would go on to paint the third earl himself around 1760.(7) As we learn from letters from Whitehead, Ford was closely linked to the Jersey circle and was causing a sensation among its members. Whitehead wrote on November 16, 1758, that:

I have seen Miss Ford, nay almost lived with her ever since I have been here. She has a glorious voice, & infinitely more affectation than any Lady you know. You would be desperately in love with her in half an hour, & languish & die over her singing as much as she does in performance.(8)

This was a performer of such extreme sensibility as even to affect herself. And Whitehead was not alone in being captivated by her charms, for, as we shall see, she had the same effect on the aged and ailing earl of Jersey.

Sensation though her performances were, they were confined to the domestic arena, which, as there was no boycott on women singing on the stage, was consequent entirely on her wishing to perform on her chosen instruments. Moreover, the advertisement for the first concert specified that she would "play a Solo on the Viol da Gamba." This has been described as a "radical" move, such as would have compounded her notoriety, for the viola da gamba, despite its visual association with the female body was - as Gainsborough (who wished himself to take his own viola da gamba to "some sweet village") would later demonstrate in portraits of his friend Carl Friedrich Abel ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED], and 1777, Huntington Library and Art Collections, San Marino, Calif.) - an instrument conventionally reserved to male performers.(9) The English guitar Gainsborough shows resting in Ford's lap, however, was "a solo instrument used almost exclusively in the home and played virtually always only by women."(10)