The Family of the Earl of Gower is an excellent example of Angelica Kauffman's skill in handling complex, multifigure compositions and her tendency to give contemporary scenes a classical tone.

The earl (later, marquess of Stafford) is the patriarch of this clan, gathered in a parklike setting and equipped with all manner of antique-style accoutrements-classically inspired costumes, a lyre, a scroll, floral garlands, a marble bust. The statue may represent the earl, his father, or a figure from antiquity. On the earl's left sits his third wife, Susannah; on his right is his fourteen-year-old son and heir, George Granville. The woman in a rose-colored tunic is his daughter Caroline. Seated at the base of the bust is Louisa; the three younger daughters are Anne, kneeling in a white dress with a blue sash; the infant Charlotte Sophia; and Georgiana Augusta, who is caressing a lamb (a symbol of innocence).

Kauffman has arranged all the figures here in a typically neoclassical manner: set within a narrow space, close and parallel to the picture plane. Other characteristics of this style are the painting's large size and the fact that the artist has borrowed many of the poses from antique statuary. She has also unified the eight disparate figures through their gestures, which lead the viewer's eye around from one family member to another.