The art of keeping up appearances

Thoughts on The Painter's Daughters by Emily Howes

Art meets literature in Emily Howes’ engrossing historical novel about two real-life sisters – daughters of the famous portrait artist, Thomas Gainsborough.

The Painter’s Daughters chasing a Butterfly, circa 1756. Held in the National Gallery, London. (It’s Peggy reaching for the butterfly)

Mary and Margaret Gainsborough, known as Molly and Peggy, were close in age, born in Suffolk roughly a year apart in 1750 & 1751. When The Painter’s Daughters opens, the family lives in Ipswich. Their father is busy building his portrait business while the young girls run wild – at least in the eyes of their vexed mother, Margaret. The sisters’ closeness is a given, according to narrator Peggy. She explains:

We are invited in together, we are conspirators together; welcomed, banished, summoned, always together. And when Molly forgets, I remember for her.

When Molly forgets? Ah. There’s the first hint that something is amiss with Molly Gainsborough, and our unease about her quickly grows. She sleepwalks. Has absences. She loses her train of thought and struggles for words. Even though the girls can’t be more than ten years old, already younger sister Peggy is assuming responsibility for her sister, hiding her missteps and foibles, even from their parents. Soon a move to Bath is on the cards. Thomas Gainsborough can make his fortune in Bath and the girls can be groomed for society and marriage. Or can they?

Emily Howes debut hit the top of my reading pile thanks to a post I wrote about Beatrix Whistler and her sisters, and a comment from

Jonathan Crain

, whose excellent interview with Howes you can read here.

The Painter’s Daughters is a great read on many levels. First of all, I have to say I really enjoyed the points where Gainsborough painted his daughters (and others) and I could jump onto the internet and inspect them online. Here, for example, are the sisters in their early twenties:

Mary and Margaret Gainsborough, circa 1774. Held in a private collection

And here is how Howes’ character Peggy describes the painting:

It is the first time my father has painted us together since we were young, and we are all porcelain skin and silk against the woodland murk. That is how my father paints beauty, always in contrast with something else. Something darker. Translucent sleeves tumble down, embroidered with gold thread. Seed pearls glint on satin. We are immaculate. But my father is too good a likeness man to be able to conceal the truth. His talent betrays him. And so the painting, designed to show the glory of his daughters, their beauty and elegance, shows only the strange, brittle sadness it was intended to hide.

That’s because there are significant ups and downs in this very close sister relationship. When the girls are very young, Peggy goes to some lengths to hide her sister’s difficulties – childish and crude methods which Molly resents when they are older. This resentment, with the added complication of a love triangle, seems bound to cause drama… and it does.

This is a novel about an intense relationship. It’s about appearance and reality – both in life and in art. While it’s a page turner – I really wanted to know how things would turn out for Molly and Peggy (not well, I feared for most of it, not well) - what I particularly enjoyed was Howes’ use of language and the way she blended of the world of art and painting into the story of the sisters. Peggy dedicates herself to covering up Molly’s challenges and at times it seems they almost succeed in showing the world a perfect façade. But always, the cracks are showing. Peggy describes their problem in terms of painting:

We have used our most delicate brushes, our most sumptuous colors, to reconfigure the canvas, to wipe out the mistakes, to create something more beautiful. It is very effective. But here is what I know about a painting that is formed on top of another: You may glaze it and varnish it and fix it in its ornate frame. You may display it in the best room of your house. But there is something which my father calls the pentimento. It is the rising up of the old picture under the paint. You think you have got rid of it and started again, but there it is, the ghost of what was there before, surfacing, making its way back into the frame. And no varnish, no satin sheen worked in with a cloth, no brittle layer of gum sandarac and Venice turpentine, can keep it from view.

Generally speaking, I’m not the biggest fan of novels with young narrators. There’s always the chance that the voice won’t be credible, or that a very youthful point of view will rely too much on dramatic irony, both of which can throw me out as a reader. In The Painter’s Daughters there’s also a separate third person narrative featuring a woman called Meg which felt disruptive at points, taking me away from where I wanted to be (with the sisters) and hinting at a sub-plot I wasn’t sure I needed to know about. But that all comes together very well late in the novel, and Peggy’s youthful narration was cleverly worked. I felt able to go with the flow and enjoyed her wide-eyed view of the world of Bath society, and her father’s strengths and failings, both as an artist and as a man. The way she calls her annoying cousin Gainsborough Dupont (possibly the Blue Boy), ‘Gainsborough Gainsborough’ was also a welcome note of levity, along with some other scenes where the girls comically fail to be proper eighteenth century misses, much to their mother’s despair.

I’ve enjoyed tracking down all five of the paintings Gainsborough did of his daughters together. In addition to the two above, there’s this one:

The Painter’s Daughters with a cat, circa 1760. Held at the National Gallery, London (and yes, the cat was never painted in!)

This one:

Portrait of the Artist’s daughters circa 1764. Held in the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

And finally my favorite, which is used in the book cover, and has its own interesting little story. It seems this picture was cut in two at some point. There’s a clear line down the middle. Some commentators seem to think the picture was then reassembled incorrectly, with Molly (on the left as we look at it here) placed too low, because as the elder sister she would be taller. I’m not convinced about that. If the girls were only about a year apart in age, why assume Molly would be taller than Peggy? As the mother of two sons born 18 months apart who bickered about who would be taller for years, I can attest that it’s the younger of the two who now stands taller at a whopping 6ft 5, with a full two inch height advantage over his elder brother!

What I do like about this image though, particularly in the context of Emily Howes’ novel, is that dividing line - almost a metaphor in itself for the sister story I’ve just read. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that it’s one half of this painting that was selected for the cover image.

Mary and Margaret Gainsborough, the artist’s daughters circa 1760. Held in the V&A, London

For added fun, take a look and see if you can decide who is who in each painting. It’s all in the noses for me! And don’t forget to check out The Painter’s Daughters. Such a great read.