The Gore Family with George, third Earl Cowper

Johan Joseph Zoffany, 1733–1810

ca. 1775

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A group of people in formal attire are gathered in a room, with some playing music and others seated. A painting hangs on the wall behind them, and a landscape is visible through a window or opening. This remarkable conversation piece was commissioned by George, third Earl Cowper, to celebrate his recent engagement to Hannah Anne Gore. In 1774, Charles Gore, represented playing the cello, took his wife and three daughters to Florence, where the sixteen-year-old Hannah met Lord Cowper, an English expatriate living in Italy. The fictive history painting in the background shows Hercules, emblematic of virtue, driving Envy from the Temple of Hymen. The theme of this painting was perhaps an oblique reference to the necessary ending of Lord Cowper’s liaisons with Florentine women, and the theme of music-making further implies the mari