Francis Basset (1757–1835) likely commissioned Thomas Gainsborough to paint a pair of portraits depicting himself and his wife,
Gainsborough was the favorite English society portrait painter of his era. Like other British portraitists succeeding Anthony Van Dyck, the leading English court painter of the early 18th century, Gainsborough was strongly influenced by the Flemish master’s elegant yet relaxed likenesses. The pair of portraits of the Bassets exemplifies Gainsborough’s mature style, in which he developed a new, romantic approach to the genre. He rendered his subjects with loose, animated brushwork and enveloped them in wild landscape settings painted in a similarly impressionistic style. In this instance, Gainsborough connects the Bassets—born as commoners and therefore newcomers to wealth and society—directly with the natural world so important to their country’s landed aristocracy.
In contrast to the portrait of his wife, in which Frances Susanna’s figure is integrated into the wooded background, and in keeping with his political and business ambitions, Francis is dressed in contemporary style and rendered more distinct from his landscape background.