Portrait of a young lady. wearing an ivory silk gown with gold brocade trim and a blue silk cloak, painted c. 1747. Circle of Thomas Hudson (1701-1779).Oval oil on canvas laid on to board in a giltwood frame.Provenance:Frost & Reed Ltd, June 1958Private collection, Somerset UKThe beautifully painted silk gown worn by the sitter bears the characteristics of the talented drapery painter Joseph Van Aken (c.1699-1749). Artists such as Thomas Hudson, Allan Ramsay, Henry Pickering, George Knapton and Joseph Highmore all used Aken�s exceptional talents in painting the silk clothes and accessories of their sitters after completing the faces and hands themselves.Aken is believed to have been born in Antwerp but spent most of his career in England, initially specialising in genre scenes and �conversation pieces� and gradually moving into drapery painting as demand grew for his services by important portraitists of the time. He became known as one of the foremost drapery painters in mid 18th century England.Thomas Hudson was born in Exeter, Devon in 1701. He was a pupil of the artist Jonathan Richardson and married Richardson''s daughter Mary in the early 1720''s. Until Richardson`s retirement, Hudson painted portraits mainly in the west country, including Devon and Bath. His earliest portraits are documented in the accounts of the Courtenay family of Devon for 1728. On Richardson`s retirement, Hudson gained a number of his master`s clients and became more prominent in London. He collaborated with the Flemish artist Joseph Van Aken as his drapery painter and his work soon showed the influence of the portraits of Van Dyck. Hudson painted around 4,000 portraits during his career but only around 80 are known to be signed. Among his best-known portraits are ''Theodore Jacobsen'' (1746, Thomas Coram Foundation, London'', Lady Mary Andover'' (1746, Ranger''s House, Blackheath, London), ''Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough and his family''(c.1755, Bl...