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QUEEN CHARLOTTE
By THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. (1727-1788)
IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON
Gainsborough, one of the greatest English masters of portrait and landscape painting, was born at Sudbury, and in his early years he found delight in sketching the pleasant scenery surrounding his home. He was sent to London at the age of fourteen to study under Gravelot, the book illustrator, and others. His early efforts as a portrait and landscape painter were not successful. He married a lady with a small fortune and settled at Ipswich, but not until his removal to Bath in 1760 did he really achieve any considerable measure of fame. In that fashionable centre, however, he found scope for his genius in portrait painting, and he secured many commissions.
He migrated to London in 1774, and settled down in a portion of Schomberg House, Pall Mall. Here he quickly became the great rival of Sir Joshua Reynolds, dividing the town into factions which severally supported his claims and those of Reynolds, and challenging the opinions of artists and critics on the same question of supremacy even down to the present day. He became one of the original members of the Royal Academy, and his art was represented at its first Exhibition.
A concise summary of his style compared with that of Sir Joshua Reynolds is given in the catalogue of the Glasgow Art Gallery, as follows:
.. Gainsborough is deservedly reputed one of the first and greatest of the artists of England. His powers as a painter were more varied than those of Sir Joshua. As a landscape artist he is the precursor of the modern naturalists, and his portraits, of ladies especially, possess an unapproachable daintiness and grace."
He was profoundly influenced by the work of Van Dyck, but he was no copyist of other men's methods: indeed, he ranks with those brilliant executants in art, Velazquez and Frans Hals. His best work may be viewed in the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery of Scotland, and the Dulwich Gallery.
From the book "Famous Paintings" Volume 2 printed in 1913.
Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
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Online "Name the Painting"
Paintings by Gainsborough
at ABC Gallery
Blue Boy
painting by Gainsborough
The Artchive
(scroll down, to find Gainsborough)
Paintings by Gainsborough
at Wikipedia
Famous Paintings in this Series
