File:Drawing (BM 1894,0417.12).jpg

Height: 365 millimetres

Width: 298 millimetres

The following text is from S. Lloyd and K Sloan, 'The Intimate Portrait', Edinburgh and London, 2008, p. 216, but please note, this was written when it was believed the sitter was Ann Thicknesse. The information about her in the entry is correct, but see the end of this comment to see why the drawing is now believed to be of Mary Hoare or Anne Hoare, who were both also amateur musicians:

Ann Ford (1737-1824) married Philip Thicknesse as his third wife in 1762. She had been painted by Gainsborough in 1760 in a well-known full-length portrait (Cincinnati Art Museum) in which she was shown with the same instrument tucked under her arm and a viola da gamba in the background. The instrument is a double-course six-string cithern or English guitar and in Hoare's image she is shown playing it. This difference is significant, as Ann Ford was famous for her amateur performances in Bath in the late 1750s but was forbidden by her father to play in public and he had her arrested when she attempted to do so. Nevertheless, she pursued her plans, advertising performances in London while living under the protection of her friend, the current Mrs Thicknesse, in Bath from 1760 to 1761, raising substantial sums from her concerts but risking threats of impropriety.

Instruments which required the performer to be seated, such as pianos, harpsichords or guitars with plucked strings, were deemed to be appropriate vehicles for the expression of 'delicate' feminine sensibility as long as they were played in private familial settings. Gainsborough's image reflected the contrasting proprieties of public and private performance, with provocative connotations in her cross-legged pose and the presence of the viola da gamba which was deemed to be an instrument for men. He knew she was 'partly admired & partly laugh'd at at every Tea Table' and decided to display the painting in his studio only and not publicly at the RA. Mrs Delany noted that it depicted her as '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' (cited in London 2002).

William Hoare's portrait shows Ann actually performing, but with decided propriety. She married Philip Thicknesse six months after the death of his second wife and never performed in public again. That this is a domestic setting is evident from her cap and fur-trimmed cape which were worn indoors over her satin sack dress. Hoare's drawing is a record of an oil painting which was a pair to another of Philip Thicknesse; possibly marriage portraits, both are now lost. Hoare was in the habit of making these detailed chalk drawn records of his oils and there are several in the Museum's collection, including the record of Philip Thicknesse's portrait. Most of them are faintly squared, as here, for ease of reduction when copying the oil and most present slightly softer images than the more hard-edged paintings, which is probably due to the different medium. On the whole, Hoare made small compositional sketches in oil as preparation for his paintings. SELECTED LITERATURE: LB11; ECM 11; Bath 1990, no. 26; London 2002, no. 35; Perry 2007, pp. 160-2

Additional note (K Sloan, June 2010): This drawing came to the Museum as a pair with a portrait of a man, believed when it was acquired to be a portrait of Philip Thickness (BM 1894,0417.9). This portrait was identified as his wife Ann. Shortly after the 'Intimate Portrait' catalogue was published, Sue Sloman (author of 'Gainsborough in Bath', Yale, 2002) indicated that it may not be a portrait of Mrs Thicknesse at all. She had compared the image with Gainsborough's images of her and also with other portraits by William Hoare. There is a pastel portrait by William Hoare of Henry Hoare of Beckenham (1744-85, younger brother of Sir Richard Hoare, 1st Bt) at Stourhead and the sitter's features are very close to the man in the drawing that was described as Philip Thickness. Henry Hoare was married to the daughter of William Hoare, Mary Hoare, who was an artist and an amateur musician as well. But Henry Hoare also had a sister, Anne, who is shown playing a cithern in a portrait of her by Francis Cotes also at Stourhead. It is difficult to tell from the features which of them this drawing may be a portrait of, so it might be a portrait of either Mary or Anne Hoare.