Mr. and Mrs. William Hallett (1785) also known as The Morning Walk is a double full-length portrait of William Hallett and Elizabeth Stephen, painted ahead of their wedding on July 30, 1785. The handsome young couple is seen arm-in-arm strolling on their morning walk with a Pomeranian sheepdog. They are dressed in elegant frocks, possibly their wedding clothes. This type of portrait, which presented the sitters in a natural setting dressed up in their finest garments, was fashionable among wealthy patrons in the late 18th century. Such paintings were a powerful status symbol, signifying the couple’s wealth and social status.
In terms of style, Gainsborough drew inspiration from the works of his predecessors, Jean-Antoine Watteau and Anthony van Dyck. The painting is characterized by Gainsborough’s light feathery brushwork, which was typical of his late style. This is most visible in the treatment of Mrs. Hallett’s dress and the dog’s thick soft coat. The artist creates a sense of lightness and movement, his slanting brushstrokes in the sky and foliage give the impression of a light breeze. Similarly, Elizabeth’s gauzy shawl and her husband’s hair almost blend into the landscape as the pair walks through. In this way, Gainsborough gave the portrait a delicate, poetic quality, which is described sometimes as a ‘lingering fragrance’. The painting was interpreted by some as a universal statement about wedding bliss, showing a young couple as they set out on their life journey together.
William Hallett was the grandson of a wealthy cabinet market. After the death of his grandfather in 1781, he inherited his villa and estate at Canons and Middlesex. Like many upper-class young men of the era, he went on the Grand Tour, traveling for two years through Europe. Upon his return, he married Elizabeth Stephen, the daughter of James Stephen, a wealthy surgeon who died before her marriage. Both the bride and groom were 21 when they got married at the richly decorated church of St Lawrence, Little Stanmore. The couple had six children in total, two sons and four daughters. In his will, William wrote that he lived with his wife Elizabeth ‘most happily for nearly 48 years, as it was impossible to do otherwise with such a woman’.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s life was probably a difficult one as her husband had a gambling problem which ultimately led to his downfall. By 1830, William’s habit of betting on horses and his poor business choices had caught up with him, and his entire fortune was squandered. Elizabeth died at the age of 69, and shortly after William remarried. According to his will, William had lost most of his fortune and had little to leave to his children. However, in the will he mentions a painting: ‘my picture of my late wife… painted before I married July 30th, 1785’, most likely Gainsborough’s painting, that he gave to his daughter Lettice Elizabeth.
For the last 60 years, Mr. and Mrs. William Hallett has been part of the National Gallery collection in London. In 2017, a man attacked the painting with a screwdriver, making two large scratches on the canvas. Fortunately, the damage was not extensive, and the painting was restored and rehung in the Museum within 10 days.
