Portrait of a young girl c.1770 painted by an artist in the circle of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1735 - 1811)The elegant young sitter is dressed in white is depicted half-length within an oval cartouche. With her sparkling eyes, flushed cheeks and rosebud lips she gaze out sensitively to engage the viewer almost 250 years after she was painted. When this portrait was painted, the perception of childhood (and the role of children’s clothing) was undergoing important changes. Throughout the early eighteenth century it was usual for children to wear very similar dress to their parents, and this could consist of stiff and restrictive boned garments of silk and satin. From the 1760s onwards children’s dress began to be dominated by a concern for lighter fabrics – in weight and colour.The young girl wears an embroidered white back-fastening gown. This garment is fashioned of fine white fabric (either lawn or muslin) and it is sheer enough that a pink undergown shows through, giv...