The subject of this portrait is Hannah Moore, the wife of Charles Tudway, a member of the English Parliament. Here, Mrs. Tudway is portrayed as she might be seen in her everyday life, with a drawstring bag hanging from her wrist and an ivory shuttle in hand for winding thread. She is shown in her home at Bath, a resort town on the Southwest coast of England where Gainsborough had settled in order to meet well-to-do patrons. The texture of Mrs. Tudway’s luscious silk dress was achieved by thin, almost impressionistic brushwork. One of the England’s acclaimed eighteenth-century artists, Gainsborough painted both portraits and landscapes, often combining the two genres as he does in this composition, which offers a view of the countryside through the opening on the right.