When not bringing medical comfort to the residents of the Alpha Quadrant, Dr. Crusher does enjoy a bit of thespianic diversion. She is, after all, head of the Enterprise’s theater group. She’s an actress, a dancer, a playwright, and she mixes up a mean sangria for the wrap parties (bet you didn’t know that last part, did you?).

In her honor, therefore, the master painter Thomas Gainsborough IX did this rendition of Dr. Crusher, based on his ancestor’s famous portrait, Mrs. Sarah Siddons:

Here, of course, is the original painting, for a bit of comparison.

Mrs. Siddons is one of my favorite portraits by Thomas Gainsborough. When I first went to London in 2003, one of the things I was most anticipating was my first trip to their National Gallery of Art, to finally see so many of the paintings that I had fallen in love with throughout my art history studies. Gainsborough’s portraits were, of course, at the top of my list of desired stops, and his portrait of Mrs. Siddons was a definite. She’s a massive, gorgeous painting, after all, and slightly more enjoyable (at least to me) than Joshua Reynolds’s version of her as a tragic muse.

So we reached the Gainsborough room, which was curiously bare in several spots and conspicuously Siddons-free. I walked over to one of the empty spaces, which serendipitously ended up being Mrs. Siddons’ regular space, only to find a little paper placard that read: “Mrs. Siddons: Currently on loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.”

Had it been any other American gallery, I probably would have introduced the British patrons around me to an unpleasant string of frustrated American-bred profanity. However, all I could do, really, was laugh at the freakish timing of this turn of events. I finished roaming through the London National Gallery, which did indeed contain many other artistic favorites that quickly made up for this particular disappointment, and when I finally returned to the D.C. area, I made a special trip to our National Gallery and did finally get some face time with Mrs. Siddons.