Mrs Dawson

Mercier's Mrs Dawson from 1740, pendant to his portrait of Mr Dawson, illustrates the common practice of commissioning matched pairs of portraits to mark a marriage or as a declaration of conjugal unity. The pendant portrait genre was deeply entrenched in Northern European tradition, and Mercier's practice of pairing male and female portraits was entirely conventional. Mrs Dawson's portrait would have hung alongside her husband's in the family's domestic interior, the paired paintings constituting a visual statement of marital partnership and domestic propriety.

Like its pendant, Mrs Dawson's portrait likely combines informality of pose with careful attention to the sitter's dress and jewels. Mercier's smooth, slightly continental handling of female flesh and silk fabrics distinguishes his female portraits from the more monumental manner of Kneller's school.