Sir William Pulteney (formerly Johnstone), fifth baronet
Date:
ca. 1772
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
93 1/2 x 59 inches (237.5 x 149.9 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.734
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
river | trees | ruffle | buckles | art patron | patron | pointed | art | man | standing | coat | costume | waistcoat | tricorne | breeches (trousers) | stock (neckcloth) | landscape | portrait | hand | leaves
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)
Publications:
Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977-1986 : Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1986, pp. 9, 13, no. 17, N590.2 .A7 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Hugh Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The portraits, fancy pictures and copies after old masters, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 699-700, cat. 754, NJ18.G16 B453 2019 (LC) Oversize (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 98-99, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, The paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, 1991, pp. 110-111, NJ18 G16 C66 1991 (YCBA)Thomas Gainsborough, Letters, New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, CT, 1963, p. 127, NJ18 G16 +A3 1963 oversize (YCBA)Thomas Gainsborough, The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2001, pp. 99-100, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 copy 1 (YCBA)John T. Hayes, Gainsborough, Paintings and Drawings , Phaidon, London, 1975, p. 25, NJ18 G16 +H395 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 100, no. 36, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)John McDonald, A Feast of Mellon, Sydney Morning Herald, May 9, 1998, p. 14, ProQuest News & Newspapers : Global NewsstreamPaul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v.3, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Duncan Robinson, Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977 - 1986, , Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, October 1986, pp. 9, 13, no. 17, N1 .B87 128:3 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Susan Sloman, Gainsborough in Bath, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002, p. 81, NJ18 G16 S56 2002 + (YCBA)Ellis Waterhouse, Gainsborough, Spring Books, London, 1966, p. 86, no. 565, pl. 144, NJ18 G16 A12 W28 1966 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)Ellis Waterhouse, Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 33, 1948-1950, p. 89, N12 W35 A12 + (YCBA)John Wilmerding, Essays in honor of Paul Mellon, collector and benefactor : Essays, , National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC & Hanover, NH, 1986, p. 254, N7442.2 M455 1986 (YCBA)Mary Woodall, The Gainsborough Exhibition at Bath, Burlington Magazine, vol. 93, August 1951, pp. 265-268, N1 +B87 93 oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
In 1759, Thomas Gainsborough had established himself in the fashionable spa town of Bath, where he became the leading portrait painter and renowned for capturing a good likeness. This full-length portrait was among the last he made in Bath before he moved to London in 1774. A good marriage and an unexpected inheritance in 1767 had transformed the sitter, William Johnstone, from a struggling Scottish lawyer into Bath’s richest resident, and one of the wealthiest commoners in Britain. Adopting his wife’s name of Pulteney, he increased his landed wealth through careful investment in the Johnstone family’s commercial interests in India and North America, including slave-based sugar plantations in the West Indies. Gainsborough charged around 100 guineas for this portrait of Pulteney in an idyllic park-like setting, about the same price Pulteney would have paid for a skilled male slave on his Caribbean plantations. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016