Mrs. William Beresford and her Son John, later Lord Decies 1775

Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of Mrs. William Beresford and her son John was made with oil paints on canvas. Oil paint is a forgiving material; it allows the artist to blend and rework the image, as Reynolds clearly did here. You can see in places that the paint is applied thinly, almost transparently, while in others, like the drapery, it is thick and textured. The entire image has a soft focus and atmospheric quality. We can consider this artwork in terms of the modes of production and capitalism, and the ways that social class appears in the work. Portraits like this one were produced by the artist for a wealthy and privileged clientele. The painting itself became a commodity, a status symbol that reflected the family's social standing and served as a display of their wealth and power. The labor involved in its production, from preparing the canvas and mixing pigments to the skill of the artist, all contributed to its value as a luxurious object. Looking closely at the materials and making, we can see how even a seemingly straightforward portrait can be understood as a complex cultural artifact.