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Reminiscent of the dreamy fêtes galantes of the eighteenth-century French painter Antoine Watteau, Gainsborough's Mall represents an actual place around the corner from Gainsborough's home at Schomberg House and at the doorstep of the royal residence, which was then St. James's Palace. Today, the Mall is a broad avenue connecting Buckingham Palace through Admiralty Arch to Trafalgar Square. By the time Gainsborough painted this picture for George III (1738–1820), the Mall no longer served its original function—as a court to play pall mall, a croquet-like game—and had become a fashionable promenade. Gainsborough presents a scene that may have been familiar to him and to the king: groups of women strolling in splendid dresses and hats, accompanied by their dogs, sizing each other up under the rows of trees that line the promenade. Cows, visible through the fence at left, provided milk for dairy drinks sold at the park. The king ultimately rejected this painting, which remained in Gainsborough's studio until his death.
Source: The Frick Collection: Essential Guide, 2024
