Updates to fashionable coiffures
Susanna 'Suky' Trevelyan, Mrs John Hudson (1736-1779) by Thomas Gainsborough, oil on canvas, 1761. National Trust, Wallington, Northumberland © National Trust Images/Derrick E. Witty
Independent researcher Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell has posed the following query.
“I’m looking for 18th-century portraits that have had their hairstyles repainted; frequently, the very large coiffures fashionable for women in the 1770s and 1780s were either added or effaced. Romney’s c. 1780s portrait of Mrs. Andrew Reid from the Kimbell Art Museum with a hairstyle of c. 1805–is a good example. Gainsborough’s portrait of Susannah Trevelyan at Wallington Hall (left) is another well-known case, but I’m sure there are many others that haven’t yet come to light.”
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Comments
One example is Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of the Linley sisters at Dulwich Picture Gallery. X-Ray photographs showing how the sitters’ hairstyles have been altered can be found in the gallery’s 1988 exhibition catalogue “A Nest of Nightingales”, pp 17-18.
Thanks for highlighting this example Scott, here’s the Dulwich painting: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/elizabeth-and-mary-linley-200067/view_as/grid/search/keyword:linley/page/1