Cleveland Museum of Art

The Dutton Family in the Drawing Room of Sherborne Park, Gloucestershire

Johann Zoffany

Date: c. 1772
Medium: oil on canvas
Culture: England
Department: European Painting and Sculpture
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art

This type of picture, known as a conversation piece, was invented in England in the 1700s and popular for the informal way it represented families. A father and daughter, mother and son, are strategizing over the next hand in a game of cards. The family recently lost a loved one, so the parents are dressed in full mourning (black clothing), and the siblings in lesser mourning (mauve, white, and gray). This is an idealized, not actual, room showing the sitters’ fashionable interior decorating aspirations.

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