Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson
This is the actress and poet Mrs Mary Robinson, aka Perdita, and boy is she pissed. I think this painting was by way of being a threat. She had had an affair with the Prince of Wales, the man soon to be ruler of a powerful country. The affair had not lasted, but she had the evidence, and now she wanted money in exchange for his texts letters. She commissioned a portrait from Gainsborough, one of the great painters of…