The countess stands above you, caressed by rose-tinted lace, putting her foot forward under her pink skirts as if dancing, but her face administers a sharp sting of authority. This painting, which hangs in a stately home on the edge of Hampstead Heath in London, proves that 18th-century British portraits can be truly stunning works of art. The trouble is that Mary, Countess Howe is distracting me from my work, for this is a painting by Thomas Gainsborough and I am supposed to be looking at a display celebrating his contemporary, Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Work? Damn right it is. It is hard to look long enough at a painting by Reynolds to form an opinion of it. You stand there trying to seem engaged while your brain is wandering off to think about the light socket on the wall or the best bus route home. It is particularly difficult to pay attention to him in this house where the Iveagh Bequest includes real masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer. And most surgically annihilating to Reynolds, Gainsborough’s Countess.
