Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.294
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
portrait | cap (headgear) | child | oval
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Gainsborough's Family Album (National Portrait Gallery, 2018-11-22 - 2019-02-03)Gainsborough's Family Album (Princeton University Art Museum, 2019-02-23 - 2019-06-05)Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)Gainsborough's Family (Gainsborough's House, 1988-06-11 - 1988-09-18)Painting in England 1700-1850 - From The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20)
Publications:
Hugh Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The portraits, fancy pictures and copies after old masters, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 365, cat. 383, NJ18.G16 B453 2019 (LC) Oversize (YCBA)Christie's sale catalogue : Early English portraits : 11 May 1923, Christie's, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, May 11, 1923, p. 22, Lot 105, Fiche B51 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 96-97, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Catherine M. Gordon, British paintings Hogarth to Turner, Frederick Warne, London, 1981, p. 24, ND466 .G67 (YCBA)M. Knoedler & Co, Exhibition of Pictures by Gainsborough, 1727-1788 : Monday, December 3rd to Saturday, December 15th, 1923, New York, NY, 1923, p. 17-18, no. 13, http://library.metmuseum.org/record=b1598779Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , , Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 130 (v.1), no. 247, pl. 88, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA)Painting in England 1700-1850 from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, The Royal Academy of Arts Winter Exhibition 1964-65., , Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 1964, p. 59 (v.1), no. 214, pl. 24, N5220.M45 R69 1964 (YCBA)David H. Solkin, Gainsborough's Family Album, National Portrait Gallery, London, p. 97, NJ18.G16 S65 2018 (LC) Oversize (YCBA)Ellis Waterhouse, Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 33, 1948-1950, p.46, N12 W35 A12 + (YCBA)Yale University Art Gallery, Painting in England, 1700-1850, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon : [exhibition at] Yale University Art Gallery, April 15-June 20, 1965, , vol. 1, W. Clowes and sons, New Haven, 1965, p. 24 (v.1), no. 87, pl. 24, ND466 Y35 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
In October 1758, Thomas Gainsborough left Ipswich for a six-month stay in Bath, hoping to find more work as a portrait painter. He quickly made a favorable impression. As one contemporary noted, “We have a Painter here who takes the most exact likenesses I ever yet saw.” Alongside commissions, Gainsborough was producing portraits of his immediate and extended family at this time, presumably intended as presents. This sensitive portrait of a young girl must have been painted on his return to Suffolk, for the sitter is Gainsborough’s niece Susanna Gardiner. Her mother, Susan, was one of Gainsborough’s elder sisters and worked as a milliner in his home town of Sudbury. The sensitive handling of paint, which almost imitates pastel, and the subtle coloring reflect Gainsborough’s growing abilities as a painter and mark a departure from the small full-length portraits he had produced in Suffolk (one of which is shown nearby). Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016