GEORGE BEARE (?-1749)

Portrait of an Elderly Lady and a Girl (1747)

Oil on canvas (127 x 102 cm)

Yale Center for British Art, Yale, Connecticut, USA

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George Beare’s distinctive Portrait of an Elderly Lady and a Girl is unquestionably his masterpiece. Of the relatively small number of paintings known to be by him (between 50 and 75), this is the only double portrait. By bringing together in one image two sitters of greatly differing ages he creates not only a touching portrait of what must be grandmother and granddaughter but also a study in contrasts in which his eye for subtleties of texture and colour is shown to full advantage.

Beare makes the most of the visual possibilities inherent in the depiction of young with old. The brushstrokes that describe the old woman’s wrinkled  face stand out against the smooth surfaces of the creamy pink flesh of the young girl, similarly, the deep greys of the older sitter’s silver silk damask dress provide a rich contrast to the white linen of the grandmother’s cap and the handkerchief draped over her shoulders. By placing the sitters against a darkened background, Beare draws our attention immediately to the heads of the women, particularly that of the old lady who engages us with her still vibrant eyes

The sumptuous fabrics in the portrait suggest that the sitters belonged to one of the wealthier families of the Salisbury region where Beare had his practice. Over the course of the last fifty years, Beare’s work has slowly emerged from the shadows cast by his more celebrated contemporaries. The dearth of biographical evidence about his life has hampered both the assessment of his training and practice and, ultimately, the authentication of unsigned pictures. Most of his known paintings are signed and dated, and most date from the period between 1743 and 1749.