The Painter Daughters chasing a Butterfly

Thomas Gainsborough

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Work Overview

The Painter's Daughters chasing a Butterfly
Thomas Gainsborough
1756
Oil on canvas
113.5 x 105 cm


This is perhaps Gainsborough's earliest portrait of his two daughters Mary and Margaret; some six others are known. Mary was baptised on 3 February 1750 (taking the same name as a daughter who died two years earlier) and Margaret was baptised on 22 August 1751. 


The portrait was probably painted in Ipswich in the mid-1750s and left unfinished.