Why curs’d? Because the hours were long and the clients burdensome. Especially gentlemen. “They have but one part worth looking at,” said Gainsborough, whose father was a merchant in textiles, “and that is their Purse.” And then there was the always tricky question of clothes. What getup will transcend la mode and stand the test of time? What liberties with dress can the artist take—that is, if he or she even paints the dress? Portraitists usually hired a specialist to add the flashing taffetas and melton wools. But as the Oxford Companion says of Gainsborough, “Unlike most of his contemporaries he employed no drapery painter.” That comment could be the springboard for “Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture,” at the Frick Collection.