GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas, English painter : b. Sudbury, Suffolk, May 1727; d. London, 2 Aug. 1788. He was the son of a wool manufacturer, and was educated under his uncle in the grammar-school of his native town.
His artistic genius early displayed itself, and for a time he studied art in London under the French engraver Gravelot, and afterward under Frank Hayman. He married at 19, set up as a portrait painter in Ipswich, and in 1758 took up his residence in Bath, where he soon ac quired a leading position as a portrait painter. He sent pictures to the exhibitions of the So ciety of Artists from 1761 to 1768, and in the latter year was elected one of the original mem bers of the Royal Academy. He contributed to the Academy exhibitions during the period 1769-72, and again, after an interval of es trangement from Sir Joshua Reynolds, from 1777 till 1783. The pictures shown during the first of those periods comprised some land scapes and numerous portraits, among them those of Garrick (two), the Duke of Argyll and Lord Nugent. Owing to a quarrel with his friend and patron, Philip Thicknesse, he left Bath for London in 1774, and in the metropolis his fame rapidly increased. Among the pictures exhibited at the Academy after his arrival in London none is more celebrated than the Boy' (1779), said to have been painted to refute a statement made by Sir Joshua Reynolds in one of his discourses. Among portraits painted during this period are those of the Duchess of Devonshire, Duchess of Cumberland, Duke of Argyll, General Conway, Sir Bate Dudley, George III and his queen, Bishop Hurd, the Prince of Wales, Colonel St. Leger, Lord Corn wallis, the Princess Royal and other members of the royal family. Owing to a quarrel about the hanging of some pictures, he never ex hibited at the Academy after 1784. Before his death he was reconciled to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Among his other works the following should be mentioned: portraits of Mrs. Siddons, Hon.
Mrs. Graham, Pitt, Blackstone, Johnson, Sterne, Richardson, Clive, Burke, Canning, Franklin, besides others; 'The Market Cart' ; 'The Watering Place' ; 'The Brook' ; 'Rustic Children' ; 'The Cottage Door' ; 'Cows in a Meadow); Forest,' and other fine landscapes. Gainsborough painted in all 300 works, of which 220 were portraits, and he had 56 subjects on hand at the time of his death. Both in portraiture and in landscape he is in the first flight of English artists. Grace ful, spirited, sure of touch, exquisite in his colorings, his subjects, who invariably look pleasant and often distinguished, epitomize the fashion •and culture of the 18th century. In his landscapes he shows a partiality for pastoral scenes, for evening lights and cloudy skies. Many of his portraits have within recent years found a home in the United States. Among private collectors in New York, Mr. George J. Gould, Mr. E. H. Huntington and Mr. Henry C. Frick possess valuable specimens. The J. Pierpont Morgan collection in Metropolitan Museum of New York includes, among other portraits, (Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire,' also known as the 'Stolen Duchess.' This was sold to Messrs. Agnew of London in 1876 for f10,605, and was immediately thereafter stolen, its fate remaining a mystery until it was returned in 1901 by the thieves from Chi cago, because of their inability to dispose of it, when it was purchased by J. Pierpont Mor gan. Consult 'Lives,' by Fulcher (1856) ; Brock-Arnold (1881); Bell (1897) ; Gower (1903) ; Fletcher (1904); Boulton (1905) ; Wedmore, 'Studies in English Art,' first series (1878); Armstrong, and His Place in English Art) (1898) ; Chamberlain, (Gainsborough' (1903).