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Emily Howes' enthralling debut novel, The Painter's Daughters, features a fictionalized version of the lives of Molly and Peggy Gainsborough. Their father, Thomas Gainsborough, was one of the most influential British painters of the 18th century.
Gainsborough, born in 1727, was the youngest of John and Mary Gainsborough's nine children. His father was a wool manufacturer in Sudbury, Suffolk. He lived there until the age of 13, when he was sent to London to study under Hubert-François Gravelot, a French painter and illustrator. From him, Gainsborough gained exposure to the Rococo style, which heavily influenced his work. In 1746, he married Margaret Burr, and they went on to have the two daughters who are the main characters of the novel.
In 1752, the same year younger daughter Peggy was born, the family moved to Ipswich, where Gainsborough worked as a portrait painter. Despite making a living from these portraits, he preferred landscapes, which at the time had not yet ...
