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Mrs Siddons meme template

Thomas Gainsborough · 1785

Mrs Siddons face swap

The greatest tragic actress in England, a striped silk dress, and a difficult nose.

Mrs Siddons, as painted Mrs Siddons with a different face swapped into it
An example: another painting's face. Yours goes on the right.

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Under 15 seconds · no sign-up · your selfie is never stored

How it works

  1. Take a photo

    Front camera, decent light, look straight ahead. Or pick one you already have.

  2. We paint you in

    Your face goes into the painting, keeping its light and its brushwork. About fifteen seconds.

  3. Share the link

    You get a page anyone can open. No account, nothing to install.

Where this one comes from

Gainsborough painted Sarah Siddons in 1785, at the point where she was the most famous performer in Britain and people fainted at her Lady Macbeth. He is supposed to have muttered during the sittings that there was no end to her nose, which is the sort of remark that survives two hundred years when the portraits do not. Reynolds had painted her a year earlier as the Tragic Muse, enthroned; Gainsborough painted her in a hat. It hangs in London, a few rooms from the Reynolds.

What is in the picture

Blue-and-white striped silk, a black hat the width of her shoulders with feathers on it, a fur muff, and a red curtain behind. She sits turned in the chair with her head round towards you and the famous profile in three-quarter view. Gainsborough painted the silk in long thin strokes that run the whole length of a fold, the way he painted everything late on, and gave the face a crispness he mostly reserved for people he found interesting.

When people use it

For arriving dressed for a different and better event. It suits the overqualified outfit, and it is the face for somebody who knows exactly how they look.

How your face lands in it

The head is turned well round on the shoulders and lit from the front, so a photograph taken from slightly off to one side lands better than a straight one. The hat brim cuts a strong horizontal above the eyes and the hair below it is the painting’s. Expect a picture with more attitude than you supplied.

Mrs Sarah Siddons — Thomas Gainsborough, 1785. Thomas Gainsborough died in 1788, so the painting has been in the public domain for well over two centuries and the reproduction adds no rights of its own. Source

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Questions

Who was Sarah Siddons?

The leading tragic actress of the British stage for thirty years, from a family of travelling players. Her Lady Macbeth was famous enough that audiences reportedly screamed at the sleepwalking scene, and she gave her farewell performance in it in 1812.

Did Gainsborough complain about her nose?

So the story goes — damn the nose, there is no end to it, muttered during a sitting. It is second-hand and nineteenth-century, which is to say unverifiable and too good to leave out.

Was there a rival portrait?

Reynolds had painted her the year before as the Tragic Muse, on a throne with allegorical figures behind her. The two pictures are usually read as a summary of the difference between the two painters.

Is it free?

Yes. There is a limit on how many you can make in a day, and sharing one earns the allowance back.

Do you keep my photo?

No. Your selfie is used to make the image and then dropped — it is never written to disk. The finished meme is stored, because it has a link people can open, and it is deleted after 90 days.

Can I use someone else’s face?

Please do not. Use your own. Putting a real person into a picture they did not agree to is exactly the thing this is not for.

Can I post the result?

Yes, anywhere you like. The paintings are public domain; what you make with your own face is yours.