DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61291#0026
14
GAINSBOROUGH
happy about it, but I endeavour to comfort
her.”
The fears hinted at in this letter, which is an
interesting revelation of the character of the
writer, were unfortunately all too well founded.
The union was anything but a happy one, and
after a few years of ever increasing misery Mr. and
Mrs. Fischer were separated by mutual consent.
Lovers of gossip, always too ready to invent
hard things of those who are unfortunate in
marriage, hinted at certain compromising secrets,
even going so far as to say that the real reason
of the parting between husband and wife was a
penchant on the part of the latter for the Prince
of Wales. For this, however, there was abso-
lutely no foundation beyond the fact that Mary
gave the portrait of Fischer painted by her father
to His Royal Highness, which was certainly not
the sort of gift likely to be acceptable to a lover.
Mrs. Fischer lived to be quite an old woman,
surviving her husband, who died in 1800, for
twenty-six years.
Amongst Gainsborough’s first aristocratic
patrons in London were Lord Bateman, the
son of the “ mushroom noble ” whom George I-
is said to have raised to the Irish peerage to
avoid making him a Knight of the Bath, and
GAINSBOROUGH
happy about it, but I endeavour to comfort
her.”
The fears hinted at in this letter, which is an
interesting revelation of the character of the
writer, were unfortunately all too well founded.
The union was anything but a happy one, and
after a few years of ever increasing misery Mr. and
Mrs. Fischer were separated by mutual consent.
Lovers of gossip, always too ready to invent
hard things of those who are unfortunate in
marriage, hinted at certain compromising secrets,
even going so far as to say that the real reason
of the parting between husband and wife was a
penchant on the part of the latter for the Prince
of Wales. For this, however, there was abso-
lutely no foundation beyond the fact that Mary
gave the portrait of Fischer painted by her father
to His Royal Highness, which was certainly not
the sort of gift likely to be acceptable to a lover.
Mrs. Fischer lived to be quite an old woman,
surviving her husband, who died in 1800, for
twenty-six years.
Amongst Gainsborough’s first aristocratic
patrons in London were Lord Bateman, the
son of the “ mushroom noble ” whom George I-
is said to have raised to the Irish peerage to
avoid making him a Knight of the Bath, and