Thomas Lawrence’s (1769-1830) Pinkie (1794) and Thomas Gainsborough’s (1727-1788) The Blue Boy (c. 1770) are similar in subject and style, as both paintings depict portraits of upper-class teenagers set against ambiguous natural landscapes. Pinkie represents Sarah Moulton in contemporary dress with loose brushstrokes, while The Blue Boy is thought to be a portrait of Jonathan Buttle and uses historical costume to pay homage to Flemish painting. They are frequently paired together and often considered as a set, but were not put into association until Henry Huntington purchased them in the 1920s. They now hang opposite one another at the Huntington Library in California, where they have been called “the Romeo and Juliet of Rococo portraiture.”

Learn more about the works that inspired the pin set HERE.