Mary Heberden

Thomas Gainsborough, 1727–1788

ca. 1777

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A portrait depicts a woman with an elaborate hairstyle and a pearl-adorned dress, looking to the left. The painting is framed within an oval. Mary Heberden (1761-1832) was the daughter of the famous London physician William Heberden (1710-1801), who first described and named the heart condition called "angina," and was the author of many learned papers about rheumatism, measles, chickenpox, and the hazards of drinking London pump-water. Dr. Heberden treated Samuel Johnson and, eventually, King George III. The Heberden family were Gainsborough's well-to-do neighbors in Pall Mall. (The Heberdens built their house on the site of one formerly owned by Nell Gwynne.) The artist probably painted Mary's portrait as a gift to Dr. Heberden. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon