Thomas Gainsborough

British, 1727 - 1788

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English portrait and landscape painter (1727-1788)

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Thomas Gainsborough, Miss Catherine Tatton, 1786, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.99

Miss Catherine Tatton

Thomas Gainsborough · 1786 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.99

Thomas Gainsborough, William Yelverton Davenport, c. 1785/1788, oil on canvas, Gift of the Coe Foundation, 1961.5.3

William Yelverton Davenport

Thomas Gainsborough · c. 1785/1788 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.5.3

Thomas Gainsborough, John, 4th Earl of Darnley, 1785, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.22

John, 4th Earl of Darnley

Thomas Gainsborough · 1785 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.22

A pale-skinned woman wearing a long, rose-pink gown sits amid a lush landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled to our left, but she turns her head to look at us with green eyes under dark brows. She has a long, straight nose, smooth, flushed cheeks, and her carnation-pink lips are closed. Her long, curly, ash-brown hair is loosely pulled back in an emerald-green ribbon, but tendrils floating around her face seem to lift as in a breeze. A ponytail or thick tendril drapes over her far shoulder, almost reaching her waist. The low neckline of her gown is wrapped with translucent, gold cloth, and the elbow-length sleeves are gauzy white. The gown has a pale pink bodice and long, full skirt. Ribbons the same green as the one in her hair wrap around her waist and around the elbow we can see. She crosses her ankles so delicate, high-heeled, charcoal-gray slippers peek out from the bottom hem of her skirt. She sits on a gray boulder, her hands folded in her lap as she holds the ends of her translucent scarf. A tall tree grows along the right edge of the composition to arc up and over with olive-green and harvest-gold leaves. Beyond the woman, the land dips down to our left back into a tree-filled valley. Swipes of slate blue in the distance could be mountains. A short distance from us, to our left, one tree with a narrow, pale green canopy grows up against the sky. Behind that tree, yellow sunlight breaks through light blue, lavender-purple, and silver clouds that fill the rest of the sky. Parts of the scene are loosely painted with swirling, fluttering strokes, especially in the woman’s costume and the trees around her.
Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1785-1787, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.92

Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Thomas Gainsborough · 1785-1787 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.92

A river winds through forest-green trees and vegetation between rolling hills and mountains extending into the deep distance under a pale, orchid-purple sky in this nearly square landscape painting. Loose brushstrokes give this work a soft, hazy look. Closest to us, at the bottom center of the painting, dense foliage is created with touches of sage and pine green against a peanut-brown ground. Small in scale within the landscape, one person on horseback, two people on foot, and perhaps a dog cross an arched bridge spanning a narrow stream to our left of center. To our right of the bridge, a few round forms could be sheep or perhaps more indistinct plants. Nearby, a house is surrounded by tall trees at the base of a cliff that rises precipitously along the right edge of the canvas, and nearly reaches the top. At the center of the composition, the topaz-blue river widens as it winds into the distance beyond the bridge. Forests of dark green trees line the river along a mauve-pink mountain peak to our left. The trees, river, and more mountains become more indistinct farther in the distance. The horizon line comes just over halfway up the composition, and the sky is streaked with pale butter yellow over the mountain to our left, under pale purple clouds or haze above.
Thomas Gainsborough, Mountain Landscape with Bridge, c. 1783/1784, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.107

Mountain Landscape with Bridge

Thomas Gainsborough · c. 1783/1784 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.107

A woman with pale, smooth skin stands wearing a loosely draped, champagne-peach dress in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces us but she turns her head to look down and off to our right with brown eyes. She has dark brows, an upturned nose, and her carnation-red lips are closed in a slight smile. Her ash-brown hair is loosely pulled up so it sweeps back from her face, while thick curls cascade down her neck and over her shoulders. Her long sleeved, floor-length dress is tied at her waist with a sage-green sash. Gossamer-white fabric drapes around her upper arms, and she holds the long ends in both hands. Her right elbow, to our left, rests on the high base of columns that rise behind her and off the top edge of the canvas. A rust-red curtain drapes down from the top of the painting, over the columns. To our right, beyond the columns, the landscape opens to a view of trees beneath a blue sky with white puffy clouds.
Thomas Gainsborough, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, 1783, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.93

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

Thomas Gainsborough · 1783 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.93

Thomas Gainsborough, A Rocky Wooded Landscape with a Figure by a Stream, 1781, black and gray wash with pen and black ink on tan laid paper, Gift of Donald Stone, 2022.40.56

A Rocky Wooded Landscape with a Figure by a Stream

Thomas Gainsborough · 1781 · black and gray wash with pen and black ink on tan laid paper ·  Accession ID  2022.40.56

Thomas Gainsborough, Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville, c. 1786, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2014.79.705

Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville

Thomas Gainsborough · c. 1786 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.705

Thomas Gainsborough, River Landscape with a Bridge and a Church, 1781, black chalk with white gouache on laid paper, Gift of Mimi and Sanford Feld, 2005.143.5

River Landscape with a Bridge and a Church

Thomas Gainsborough · 1781 · black chalk with white gouache on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2005.143.5

From a rocky shoreline, we look on several light-skinned people working by the sea with a boat and a net in this freely painted, almost square seascape. The scene is framed by a silhouette of low boulders along the lower right corner, and a towering cream-white rock rising two-thirds of the way up the composition to our left. Scrubby, celery-green vegetation grows on the rocky outcropping. Near the center, close to the towering white rocks, three people sit, reaching for something near one end of a boat while a fourth person braces against the rock, presumably to push the boat out to the sea. Closer to us, three people on the shore work with a net. Two stand with the net hooked over their shoulders, and a third person crouches in the water with head down. The people all wear simple shirts and pants in shades of tan, mustard yellow, burnt orange, and pale blue. All but two wear hats. The sea meets the shore with frothy white foam and cresting, low waves. The sea beyond fades from pale sage green to arctic blue along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Two sail boats tilt against the wind in the distance. Pale, smoky lavender-purple clouds drift across the ice-blue sky.
Thomas Gainsborough, Seashore with Fishermen, c. 1781/1782, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.121

Seashore with Fishermen

Thomas Gainsborough · c. 1781/1782 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.121

Bibliography

1915

  • Whitley, William T. Thomas Gainsborough. London, 1915.

1963

  • Woodall, Mary. The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough. 2d rev. ed. London, 1963.

1970

  • Hayes, John. The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough. 2 vols. London and New Haven, 1970 and 1971.

1975

  • Hayes, John. Gainsborough: Paintings and Drawings. London, 1975.

1982

  • Hayes, John. The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough. 2 vols. London and New York, 1982.

1992

  • Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 80-82.