Mrs Thomas Linley

Mary Linley (née Johnson; 1729-1820) was described by her contemporaries as garrulous, shrewd, clever and frugal, with vulgar ways that often embarrassed her more socially distinguished offspring. Her portrait has been sympathetically painted to capture the traits of a formidable matriarch. In her youth “reckoned beautiful” and possessed of a charming singing voice, Johnson married Thomas Linley the elder (1733-95) in 1752. She bore twelve children, eight of whom survived infancy to become one of the most celebrated musical families of the Georgian age. Known as ‘The Nest of Nightingales’, the Linley family enchanted the town of Bath with their talents. To oversee her family, Mary Linley put her own singing talents behind her, running the household in Bath and, later, in London. She saw all but two of her children die before her, and outlived her husband by twenty-five years.

Popular society portraitist James Lonsdale (1777-1839) exhibited this work at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1820, shortly after Mary Linley’s death at the age of ninety-one. It is a revealing example of carefully constructed flattery, finding the balance between achieving an acceptable likeness and capturing a forceful character. Lonsdale had a reputation for including realistic details in his portraits that may not necessarily have flattered his clients. Linley’s mouth is held firmly shut to conceal her one remaining tooth, while peeping out from beneath her cap are soft curls of brown hair that are not her own. Yet, in contrast to the serious set of Linley’s face, Lonsdale uses light touches of the brush to describe the ruffled edge of her cap, finished with a frivolous rosette of ribbon suggested with dashes of bright white highlights.