Master John Heathcote
c. 1771/1772
Artist, British, 1727 - 1788


West Building Main Floor, Gallery 58
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by The Fuller Foundation, Inc.
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Dimensions
overall: 127 × 101.2 cm (50 × 39 13/16 in.)
framed: 159.4 × 133.3 × 14 cm (62 3/4 × 52 1/2 × 5 1/2 in.) -
Accession
1961.2.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Painted for the sitter's parents, John [d. 1795] and Lydia [d. 1822] Heathcote, Conington Castle, Huntingdonshire; by descent to their great-grandson, John Moyer Heathcote [1834-1912]; purchased 1913 from the Heathcote estate by (Thos. Agnew and Sons Ltd., London); sold the same year to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[1] sold c. 1913 to Herbert, 1st Baron Michelham [1851-1919], Hellingly, Sussex; (his estate sale, Hampton & Sons, on the premises, 20 Arlington Street, London, 23-24 November 1926, 2nd day, no. 292); Captain Jefferson Davis Cohn, Paris,[2] on behalf of (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold March or April 1927 to Alvan T. Fuller [1878-1958], Boston;[3] The Fuller Foundation, Boston; gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Agnew stock books, recorded by The Provenance Index, J. Paul Getty Trust, Santa Monica.
[2] The Getty Provenance Index records Cohn as the buyer at the Michelham sale. See also Colin Simpson, The Artful Partners: The Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen, London, 1987: 179-180, for an account of Cohn's part in the sale.
[3] An undated note in the NGA curatorial files records a telephone conversation between Ross Watson and Peter Fuller, son of Alvan T. Fuller, who said that his father purchased this painting in England, probably at Thomas Agnew & Sons in July 1927. However, the late Sir Geoffrey Agnew, in Agnew's 1817-1967 , London, 1967: 49, states that Governor Fuller of Boston was a faithful Agnew's client, that they acted on his behalf at many auctions, and that the only picture he ever bought from Duveen was a Gainsborough that Agnew's had failed to buy for him at the Michelham sale.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1864
Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Masters, British Institution, London, 1864, no. 184.
1928
Exhibition of Paintings Loaned by Governor Alvan T. Fuller, Art Club, Boston, 1928, no. 6.
1939
Paintings, Drawings, Prints from Private Collections in New England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1939, no. 48, pl. 26.
1959
A Memorial Exhibition of the Collection of the Honorable Alvan T. Fuller, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1959, no. 22, repro.
Bibliography
1856
Fulcher, George Williams. Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.. 2d rev. ed. London, 1856: 228.
1898
Armstrong, Sir Walter. Gainsborough & His Place in English Art. London, 1898: 197; popular ed., London, 1904: 269.
1951
Taylor, Basil. Gainsborough. London, 1951: 22, pl. 10.
1958
Waterhouse, Sir Ellis. Gainsborough. London, 1958.
1962
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 124, color repro.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 319, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 55.
1968
Cooke, Hereward Lester. Painting Lessons from the Great Masters. London, 1968: 208, repro. (two details), color repro. opposite.
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 47, repro.
Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 145-146, color repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 144, repro.
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 495, color repro.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 537, no. 493, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 166, repro.
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: 82-84, color repro. 83.
1999
Zuffi, Stefano and Francesca Castria, La peinture baroque. Translated from Italian by Silvia Bonucci and Claude Sophie Mazéas. Paris, 1999: 364, color repro.
Wikidata ID
Q20178551