Chapter VII: English, Eighteenth Century 329–428 (11)

“We know as little about Gainsborough’s tools and methods of painting as we do of his pigments, but if his daughter’s memory may be trusted, her father worked with paint so thin and liquid that his palette ran over unless he kept it on the level. It is generally agreed that he used very long brushes, and Nollekens Smith who saw him at work, says: ‘I was much surprised to see him sometimes paint portraits with pencils on sticks full six feet in length and his method of using them was this: he placed himself and his canvas at a right angle to the sitter, so that he stood still and touched the features of his pictures exactly at the same distance at which he viewed the sitter.’ The anonymous biographer of the _Morning Chronicle_ who knew the painter excuses his supposed want of finish by saying that he worked with a very long and broad brush. Another contemporary, John Williams (Pasquin), in a biographical note declares that Gainsborough always prided himself upon using longer and broader tools than other men and upon standing farther away from his canvas when at work. That he always stood to paint we know from Thicknesse, but it is obvious that all his work could not have been done with broad tools of hog-hair. Probably he used camel-hair brushes sometimes, as did Gainsborough Dupont, who inherited his uncle’s implements and colors and in painting followed his manner exactly. Dupont left behind him, in addition to a great quantity of hogtools, ‘twelve bundles of camel’s hair pencils.’ Fulcher says that when Gainsborough’s sitters left him it was his custom to close the shutter, in which was a small circular aperture, the only access for light and by this subdued illumination work on his picture and get rid of superfluous detail. No authority is given for this statement, but there can be little doubt that Gainsborough loved to subdue the light in his painting-room. Williams says that it was sometimes subdued to such an extent that objects were barely visible.”[27]

And Osias Humphrey, R. A., tells us a little more, drawing from his memories of Bath,... “Exact resemblances in his portraits was Mr. Gainsborough’s constant aim, to which he invariably adhered. These pictures, as well as his landscapes, were frequently wrought by candle-light and generally with great force and likeness. But his painting-room--even by day a kind of darkened twilight--had scarcely any light and I have seen him, whilst his subjects have been sitting to him when neither they nor the pictures were scarcely discernible.” We also learn that Gainsborough let in more light when the picture reached its finishing stages.

THE MALL IN ST. JAMES’S PARK.

_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._

_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry Clay Frick._

Horace Walpole characterized this delightful picture as airier than a Watteau and “all in motion and flutter like a lady’s fan.” It is one of Gainsborough’s latest works, painted in 1786, and one of his masterpieces, oils on canvas (57¾ × 47½ inches). The picture was among those in the painter’s studio at the time of his death. After a few changes of ownership, it passed into the Collection of George Frost, an artist and fellow-townsman of Gainsborough, and then to Sir Audley Dallas Neeld, Bart., Grittleton House, near Chippenham, Wiltshire.

_The Mall_ is a perfect epitome of London society in the Eighteenth Century--the London of Austin Dobson.

“The Mall from the days of the Stuarts until the closing years of the Eighteenth Century was the field upon which fashion, and feminine fashion especially, chose to disport itself. Twice a day social London donned its best apparel and took a turn under the trees, once at midday and again, in summer, in its evening clothes after the early dinner. Here fashion met its friends, exchanged its repartees, made appointments for evening _rendez-vous_ at Ranelagh or Vauxhall, ate fruit or bought flowers from Betty’s girl out of St. James’s Street, or drank syllabubs from the red cow’s milk which was one of the attractions of the London parks. Nothing in the external aspect of London more struck the intelligent foreigner than the amenities of the promenade in the Mall. One of these gentlemen concluded an eloquent pæan on the beauty of the lady promenaders, by recording with rapture that of a morning the very ground glistened with the pins which they had dropped. The Mall, indeed, was the very shrine of flounce and furbelow until somewhere about 1795, when fashion unaccountably moved northward to the walk in the Green Park at the back of Arlington Street, and from there later to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

_Collection of the Mr. Henry Clay Frick_

THE MALL

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

“The very spirit of this life is preserved in Gainsborough’s picture, one of the few canvases in which he represents figures in motion; singular also among his work is that it contains a score or so of figures. There is a central group of four ladies with an attendant cavalier advancing towards the spectator, a pair on the right, two pairs on the left passing each other, others again seated on the right. The accidental episodic quality of such a subject is perfectly conveyed--the transient glance of a passing woman, the turn of the neck appropriate to that attitude, the ground dotted with an occasional dog. Technically it represents Gainsborough at his highest, where the solemn tones of his earlier manner have disappeared, and the very painting itself seems to echo his delight in the mastery of heightened, luminous color.”[28]

MARIA WALPOLE, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._

_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft._

The subject of this portrait was famous under three names: her maiden name of Maria Walpole; as Lady Waldegrave; and as the Duchess of Gloucester. She was very beautiful (no one could compete with her but the Gunning sisters); she was very witty and brilliant; and, moreover, she was noted for her rich qualities of heart and character. Her uncle, Horace Walpole, was devoted to her.

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft_

MARIA WALPOLE, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

Maria Walpole began life under a cloud, but this was soon dispelled and the rest was all sunshine. The Hon. Edward Walpole, second son of Sir Robert, was her father and her mother was a milliner’s apprentice at Bath. Maria was baptized July 10, 1738, at St. James’s, Westminster, and was made legitimate by His Majesty’s warrant. Recognized as a Walpole, everything was done for her. The old _London Town and Country Magazine_ gives us this very good idea of her preparation for life: “Maria’s education was suited to the rank of life in which she has ever figured; and the advantages she derived from it were entirely noticed by every man of taste and discernment who was happy enough to be in her company.”

Horace Walpole brought about her first marriage to the Right Honorable James, Second Earl of Waldegrave, K. G., in 1759; and he wrote to Sir Horace Mann:

“I have married, that is, I am marrying my niece, Maria, my brother’s second daughter, to Lord Waldegrave. What say you? A month ago I was told he liked her--does he? I jumbled them together and he has already proposed. For character and credit he is the first match in England--for beauty I think she is. She has not a fault in her face and person and the detail is charming. A warm complexion tending to brown, fine eyes, brown hair, fine teeth, and infinite wit and variety.”

In another letter Sir Horace wrote: “The second daughter of my brother is beauty itself. Her face, bloom, eyes, hair, teeth, and person all are perfect. You may imagine how charming she is when her only fault, if one must find one, is that her face is rather too round. She has a great deal of wit and vivacity with perfect modesty.”

To George Montagu on May 16, he wrote:

“Well! Maria was married yesterday. Don’t we manage well? The original day was not once put off; lawyers and milliners were all ready canonically. It was as sensible a wedding as ever was. There was neither form nor indecency, both which generally meet on such occasions. They were married at my brother’s in Pall Mall just before dinner by Mr. Keppel;[29] the company, my brother, his son, Mrs. Keppel and Charlotte,[30] Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Lady Betty Waldegrave and I. We dined there. The Earl and new Countess got into the post-chaise at eight o’clock and went to Navestock (Lord Waldegrave’s seat near Brentwood, Essex) alone, where they stay till Saturday night; on Sunday she is to be presented. Maria was in a white and silver nightgown[31] with a hat very much pulled over her face; what one could see of it was handsomer than ever; a cold maiden blush gave her the sweetest delicacy in the world.”

Maria was a friend of the Countess of Coventry, who had attained fame as the beautiful Maria Gunning and used to walk with her in the Park and they must have been a very striking pair, for after the Countess of Coventry’s death, Lady Waldegrave was considered the handsomest woman in England. A month after Maria’s marriage Sir Horace noted in a letter: “My Lady Coventry and my niece Walpole have been mobbed in the park.”

There were three daughters of this marriage--Laura, Maria, and Horatia--remembered to-day especially for the group portrait Sir Joshua Reynolds painted of them and which belonged to Sir Horace Walpole in 1782.

Lord Waldegrave died in 1763; and on Sept 6, 1766, Maria, now Dowager Countess of Waldegrave, was married privately to H. R. H. William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, seven years her junior. The marriage was performed in her own house in Pall Mall by her own chaplain and she thus became the sister-in-law of George III. The secret was kept for some time and the King banished his brother from Court, but after two years the Duke was taken back into Royal favor and the Duchess bore her honors with such grace and dignity that she became very popular at Court.

The portrait represented here, oils on canvas (35½ × 27½ inches), was painted about 1779, or before.

“We hear,” the _Public Advertiser_ printed on May 4, 1772, “that the gentlemen upon the Committee for managing the Royal Academy have been guilty of a scandalous meanness to a capital artist by secreting a whole-length picture of an English Countess for fear their Majesties should see it; and this only upon a full conviction that it was the best finished picture sent in this year to the Exhibition.” Again in 1775 a society reporter for the _Morning Chronicle_ gathered up this piece of gossip: “The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester are often going to a famous painter’s in Pall Mall; and it is reported that he is now doing both their pictures, which are intended to be presented to a great lady.”

The picture is nearly three-quarter length and represents the Duchess in a gold-tinted dress with hair dressed high and powdered and wearing lovely pearls. Her head is posed upon her left hand and the arm rests upon a pedestal that is barely visible. There is good reason for thinking this portrait was originally full-length and that it has been cut down. It is interesting to compare this portrait of the _Duchess of Gloucester_ with _The Hon. Mrs. Graham_ in the National Gallery, Edinburgh, who is painted, full length, and is resting her arm, likewise, on a pedestal.

“The introduction of a parapet, or indeed, of any kind of architectural setting in a portrait of kit-cat size is most unusual. The left arm resting on the parapet and the large scale on which the head is here painted, confirm our view that our canvas was originally, as Fulcher claims, a whole length. This canvas to-day is almost exactly kit-cat size. It may well have been cut down to meet the requirements of hanging. Half a century ago such a practice was not unknown, especially in the English Royal Collections. It will be remembered that the lower portions of the canvas of Gainsborough’s _Eldest Princesses_ was very inceremoniously cut away in the early part of the Nineteenth Century.

“A kit-cat, strictly speaking, is a canvas for a portrait less than a half-length, but including the hands, and measuring 36 by 28 inches. It is so called from the portraits of the members of the Club at Barn Elms, who seem to have originally met in the pie-house kept in Shire Lane, London, by one Kit (i.e. Christopher) Cat. These portraits are now in the Baker Collection at Bayfordbury, near Hertford.”[32]

In June 1904 _The London Times_ stated that “The Duke of Cambridge’s pictures, which are now hung on Christie’s walls, form the largest collection of portraits of the reigning house that has ever been offered for sale. All, in fact, represent George III and his family, with their husbands and wives. By far the finest is Gainsborough’s _Maria Walpole, Countess of Waldegrave and Duchess of Gloucester_, Horace Walpole’s beautiful niece.”

These art-treasures, as well as Gloucester House, had been inherited by the Late Duke of Cambridge from his aunt, the second and last Duchess of Gloucester, who died in 1857.

The sale of this picture created a sensation. Again referring to the _London Times_ (June 13, 1904), we read: “The honors of the day distinctly fell to Gainsborough, whose beautiful portrait of _Maria Walpole_ has established a record price for this artist’s pictures at auction. Bidding was started on Saturday at 5000 guineas and in rather more than half a dozen bids reached 12,000 guineas, at which it was knocked down to Messrs. Agnew & Sons. The price, therefore, quite eclipses the 10,000 guineas paid in 1876 for the famous stolen _Duchess of Devonshire_, which remained the record price for a Gainsborough until Saturday.”

In the following November, the _Majestic_ brought the $60,000-Gainsborough to New York.

This portrait, when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799, was described by Sir Horace Walpole as “very good and like.”

Maria Walpole died in 1807, two years after the Duke of Gloucester, leaving one son and two daughters. Of her other portraits Lionel Cust in _The Royal Collection of Paintings_, Vol. I, 1905, says:

“The beautiful Countess of Waldegrave was one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s favorite sitters. She sat to him in 1759, after her marriage, for the full-length portrait in peeress’s robes, which belongs to the present Earl Waldegrave, and again in 1761 and 1762, for the well-known portrait in a turban and for the Madonna-like group with her child, which was bequeathed by Frances, Countess Waldegrave, to the Duc d’Aumale, and is now in the Condé Collection at Chantilly. She sat again to Reynolds in 1764, as a widow in mourning for her husband, and more than once again during her widowhood. She sat to him in October, 1767, when really Duchess of Gloucester, for a portrait to be given to her father, Sir Edward Walpole.

“After the marriage had been revealed to the world, the Duchess sat to Reynolds in 1771, for the full-length seated portrait now at Buckingham Palace. This was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1774. This portrait descended to her daughter, H. R. H. Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester, who at her death in November, 1844, bequeathed the portrait to H. R. H. Prince Albert, the late Prince Consort.

“The Duchess of Gloucester sat for the last time to Reynolds in 1779, for a group of herself and her daughter, Princess Sophia Matilda.”

GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.

_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._

_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee._

She stands here--proud, elegant, disdainful, stylish, aristocratic, beautiful, and altogether charming, in her dashing, large, black hat worn at a _debonnaire_ angle, white dress, and light petticoat and light blue sash, looking at us with the most marvellous eyes ever put upon canvas and a mouth that matches them in such naturalness that we expect the Duchess to smile at any moment. Her eyes have such fire and sparkle that they pierce right through us. It is hard to believe that we are looking upon a painted portrait--it must be the Duchess herself who gives us that alert, penetrating, fiery, and mocking glance.

This picture has had a most romantic history. It is the famous “Lost Duchess,” stolen in London, and found after twenty-five years in America.

The Duchess, in some unknown way, fell into the hands of a Mrs. Maginnis, an old schoolmistress, who had it cut down to fit the space over the chimney-piece in her sitting-room and burned up the cut-off piece. Mr. Bentley, a dealer bought the picture from Mrs. Maginnis for £56 and then sold it to Mr. Wynn Ellis, a wealthy City merchant, who sent this _Portrait of a Lady_ to be engraved by Messrs. Henry Graves & Co. This firm, having already engraved the Clifden Duchess of Devonshire, at once identified the subject. When the Wynn Ellis Sale took place at Christie’s, June 6, 1876, this portrait created a great deal of excitement. It was catalogued as follows:

“T. Gainsborough, R. A. _The Duchess of Devonshire_, in a white dress and blue silk petticoat and sash, large black hat and feathers, 59½ × 45 inches.”

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee_

GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

As this portrait of the Duchess was the first “star” that ever rose in an auction-sale, it is worth while putting forward here the contemporary account of an event which has passed into history. The _London Times_ records:

“The sale of the modern pictures belonging to the Wynn Ellis Collection on Saturday last created such a sensation as has never been experienced in the picture world of London. Throughout the week the pictures had attracted a considerable number of visitors, but on the day preceding the sale the interest came to a climax and crowds filled the rooms of Messrs. Christie, Manson, & Woods. Anyone passing the neighborhood of St. James’s Square might well have supposed that some great lady was holding a reception and this, in fact, was pretty much what was going on within the Gallery in King Street. All the world had come to see a beautiful Duchess, created by Gainsborough; and so far as we could observe, they all came, saw, and were conquered by her fascinating beauty.

“When the portrait was placed before the crowded audience a burst of applause showed the universal admiration of the picture. The biddings commenced at one of 1000 guineas, which was immediately met with one of 3000 guineas from Mr. Agnew; and, amid a silence of quite breathless attention, the bids followed in quick succession until 10,000 guineas was announced. Mr. Agnew then called 10,100 guineas and won the battle in this most extraordinary contest. The audience densely packed on raised seats round and on the floor of the house, stamped, clapped, and bravoed.”

And now comes the story!

Twenty days after this sale, on the night of May 26, 1876, the galleries of Messrs. Agnew were entered, the canvas was cut from the stretching frame, and the Duchess was carried off!

Where?

By whom?

The picture was already too well-known to be saleable and to make it still better known photographs of the picture were immediately placed in every shop-window in London. The subject became of universal interest: pictures of the Duchess were printed on every article of merchandise possible; and fashion decreed that once again the Duchess’s huge hat should be the proper thing to wear. For many years afterwards the “Gainsborough Hat” and the “Picture Hat” continued to be worn in country towns across the Atlantic, far away from London, by persons who had never heard of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire.

Sensation No. 2.

In March, 1901, the newspapers all over the world announced that the “Lost Duchess” had been found!

Mr. Morland Agnew, after various negotiations, was handed a parcel in the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago which proved to be the Gainsborough canvas. The discovery had been made by the New York Pinkerton Detective Agency, who found the thief, one Adam Worth alias Henry Richmond, son of a German Jew, who had settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and who was one of the most famous and clever criminals ever known.

A few days after its return the picture was purchased by Mr. J. P. Morgan at a price beyond £30,000.

Many years before, in 1762–3, Gainsborough had painted in his studio at Bath the Duchess of Devonshire when she was little Georgiana Spencer, aged six, in a white dress, pink ribbons, and dainty cap. At the same period Gainsborough painted portraits of her parents, Earl and Countess Spencer of Althorp, the one of the Countess ranking very high among Gainsborough’s works of the Bath period. The Countess, Margaret Georgiana, daughter of the Hon. Stephen Poyntz, was a very beautiful and extremely wealthy woman and the Earl also possessed enormous wealth and became famed for the magnificent Collection he made at Althorp. The marriage of this couple in 1755 created a sensation and was much talked of in the gossipy letters and memoirs of the day. One eye-witness related: “The bride followed in a new sedan-chair lined with white satin, a black page walking before and three footmen behind, all in the most superb liveries. The diamonds worn by the newly married pair were given to Mr. Spencer by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and were worth £100,000. The shoe-buckles of the bridegroom alone were worth £30,000.”

Lady Harvey related that the wedding-party went from London to Althorp “in three coaches with six horses and two hundred horsemen. The villages through which they passed were in great alarm, some of the people shutting themselves up in their houses, and others coming out with pitchforks, spits, and spades, crying out ‘The invasion has come’, believing that the Pretender and the King of France were both come together; and great relief was experienced when the formidable cavalcade had passed without setting fire to the habitation, or murdering the inhabitants.”

The year after this marriage Mrs. Delany, Horace Walpole’s friend, met “Mrs. Spencer, one of the finest figures I ever saw, in white and silver with all her jewels and scarlet decorations; her modest, unaffected air gives a lustre to all her finery that would be very tinsel without it.”

Is it any wonder that with such parentage Georgiana Spencer should have had brains, beauty, charm, and perfect equipment in every way for that world of society which was her inheritance?

Georgiana was born on June 9, 1757, and was married at the age of seventeen to the fifth Duke of Devonshire, regarded as the “first match” in England. “Georgiana was a lively girl,” said Walpole, “natural and full of grace.” Immediately the Duchess became “the irresistible queen of ton” and the most conspicuous leader of society whenever and wherever she appeared. She dazzled every gathering by her beauty; astonished everyone with her elegant and extravagant dress; and charmed everybody by her wit and her grace. The Duchess was always among the gay butterflies who masqueraded at the Pantheon, promenaded at Ranelagh, danced at assemblies, or played for high-stakes at fashionable gaming-tables. To think of London society in the late Eighteenth Century without the Duchess of Devonshire, is impossible.

Walpole writes that she “effaces all without being a beauty; but her youthful figure, flowing good nature, sense, and lively modesty and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon.”

The Duchess had a clever mind and she delighted in the society of persons of talent. Fox, Sheridan, and Selwyn were among her special friends. The story of her campaigning for Fox with Fox’s sister, Lady Duncannon, and even selling “a kiss for a vote” is told by many pens and by pencils as well, for the Duchess afforded fine material for the caricaturists. The Duchess was much pleased, it is said, by the compliment paid to her during the Fox campaign by an Irishman, who exclaimed: “Sure I could light me pipe at her eyes!” And Gainsborough managed to fix this flaming glance in the famous Satterlee portrait.

Coarse satire attacked the Duchess of Devonshire as it attacks all who enter the political arena; but, on the other hand, there are many tributes from contemporary pens to her sweetness of disposition and to her noble and generous qualities of heart.

In 1806 upon hearing of her death at Devonshire House, Piccadilly, (just lately demolished), the Prince of Wales exclaimed: “We have lost the best-loved woman in England” and Charles James Fox replied: “We have lost the kindest heart in England.”

The Duchess of Devonshire occasionally wrote verse. Her _Passage of the Mountain of St. Gothard_, dedicated to her children (she had a son and two daughters), was published with a French translation in 1802; an Italian translation was printed in 1803; and a German translation in 1805. This poem gave occasion to Coleridge’s ode with the lines:

“O lady nursed in pomp and pleasure
Whence learned you that heroic measure?”

Gainsborough could not have made this or any other portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire until after 1782, because, in that year, Bate published in the _Morning Herald_, the following lines:

“O Gainsboro! thou whose genius soars so high,
Wild as an eagle in an unknown sky,
To Devon turn!--thy pencil there shall find
A subject equal to thy happy mind!
Amidst thy fairest scenes, thy brightest dyes,
Like young Aurora let the Beauty rise.”

Another portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough is also in this country, owned by the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon. It represents a whole length life-size figure leaning against a pedestal and came from the Collection of the late Earl Spencer at Althorp, Nottinghamshire.

THE BLUE BOY.

_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._

_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry E. Huntington._

The _Blue Boy_ is without doubt the most famous picture in the world. When it passed from the Duke of Westminster’s Collection in Grosvenor House, London, by private sale to the late Mr. Henry E. Huntington, the event created a sensation in the art-world, which soon extended to the general public. No painting was ever exploited so widely in the press and when exhibited at the Duveen Galleries in New York, before starting on its journey to California, the _Blue Boy_ attracted unusual crowds.

Before it bade farewell to London the famous picture was exhibited at the National Gallery and the following extract from a letter of Sir Charles J. Holmes, Director of the National Gallery, dated January 24, 1922, to Sir Joseph Duveen, gives an idea of how the portrait is regarded in England:

“My dear Duveen: I saw the last, for the time being anyhow, of the _Blue Boy_ this afternoon at ten minutes past four and feel bound to write these lines to thank you and Mrs. Huntington for the pleasure which the sight of it has given to more than 90,000 people during the last three weeks. It is indeed a most brilliant thing, outshining in its present condition all our English pictures at Trafalgar Square and when the natural mellowing of the varnish during the next two or three years has taken place its perfections will be enhanced. And though its passing from us has been the cause of universal regret, that regret has not been tinged with bitterness. It is generally recognized that while in the process of recovering from the War, the Nation could not have paid the price which its fortunate owner was able to afford.”

_Collection of the late Mr. Henry E. Huntington_

THE BLUE BOY

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

The picture, an oil painting on canvas, is large (5 feet, 10 inches × 4 feet) and represents a young boy, Master Jonathan Buttall of London, life-size, dressed in a blue suit, holding a broad-rimmed hat in his right hand and very conspicuously standing forth from a landscape background with a dark, cloudy sky.

The following notes from the _Farington Diary_, recently published, bring us into relation with the two early sales.

Under date of Dec. 15, 1796, we find:

“Buttall’s sale. I went to Gainsborough’s picture of a _Boy in a Blue Vandyke Dress_ sold for 35 guineas. Several of his drawings were sold in pairs. Some went so high as 8 guineas and a half the pair.”

“May 25, 1802. I painted till four o’clock and then went to Nesbitt’s sale in Grafton Street, where I met Hoppner, who had purchased the _Boy in Blue Dress_ by Gainsborough, which was Buttal’s, for 65 guineas. At Buttalls sale it was sold for 35 to Mr. Nesbitt.”

The picture is in marvellous condition. When Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower saw it in the Duke of Westminster’s Collection before it came to America, he exclaimed:

“The _Blue Boy_ at Grosvenor House has all the glamor and charm of a portrait of a fairy prince.”

These few words explain the spell that the picture seems to cast upon every one who sees it, for whenever _The Blue Boy_ has been exhibited crowds have stood enraptured before it.

Regarding Mr. Nesbitt’s connection with the picture we have the following story from the Rev. J. T. Trimmer, Vicar of Marston-on-Dove, Derbyshire:

“Many years ago there resided at Heston a Mr. Nesbitt, a person of substance and a companion of George, Prince of Wales. He once possessed Gainsborough’s _Blue Boy_ and in the following way. He was dining with the Prince. ‘Nesbitt,’ said the Prince, ‘that picture, (pointing to the _Blue Boy_) shall be yours.’ At first he thought the Prince must be joking, but, finding he was decidedly serious, Nesbitt, who was a _beau_ of the first water, made all suitable acknowledgments for H. R. H.’s generosity and next morning the _Blue Boy_ arrived, followed in due time by a bill for £300, which he had the satisfaction of paying. I heard Mr. Nesbitt many years ago tell the story at my father’s table.”

From Mr. Nesbitt the _Blue Boy_ came into possession of John Hoppner, the artist, who sold it to Earl Grosvenor. Then, of course, _The Blue Boy_ passed as an heirloom to his successor, the Duke of Westminster. For many years _The Blue Boy_ hung in Grosvenor House, London, in the same room with Sir Joshua Reynolds’s _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_, the two most famous portraits of the two most famous English painters. And it is one of the romances of art that these two portraits should have crossed the Atlantic and to be again united, as it were, this time in a California mansion.

Gainsborough had doubtless some reason for painting this portrait; but it is not the reason usually given,--namely that it was done in refutation of a theory expressed by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1778. Apart from the reasons now accepted to disprove this theory, the picture is too joyously painted for a controversial and academic _tour de force_.

One of Gainsborough’s latest biographers, Mr. William T. Whitley,[33] discovered the following in a number of _The European Magazine_ (August 1798), which would seem to give the real reason for the genesis of Gainsborough’s famous portrait:

_Mr. Gainsborough_

“One of the finest pictures this great artist ever painted, and which might be put upon a par with any portrait that ever was executed, is that of a boy in a blue Vandyke dress, which is now in the possession of a tradesman in Greek Street. Gainsborough had seen a portrait of a boy by Titian for the first time, and, having found a model that pleased him, he set to work with all the enthusiasm of his genius. ‘I am proud,’ he said, ‘of being of the same profession with Titian, and was resolved to attempt something like him.’”

So much has been written about this portrait and the copies that have been made of it that great confusion has resulted, and the constant repetition of the same story by writers has tended to obscure rather than to clarify the subject. However, the theory now accepted is that the portrait of _The Blue Boy_ first appeared in public at the Royal Academy in 1770, sent there by Gainsborough himself,--a theory supported by a letter written by Mary Moser, R. A. to Fuseli, then in Rome, in which she said: “It is only telling you what you know already of the Exhibition of 1770, to say that Gainsborough is beyond himself in a Vandyke habit.” Another argument in favor of this date is found in a conversation with an old artist, John Taylor, recorded by J. T. Smith in his _Book for a Rainy Day_.

The person, chiefly, if not wholly, responsible for the first suggestion of the theory that Gainsborough painted the picture to disprove Sir Joshua Reynolds’s pronouncement regarding color seems to have been John Burnet, the engraver of some of Wilkie’s pictures and a writer on art. The legend began to be circulated in 1817, when Burnet published his _Practical Treatise on Painting_, where, after challenging the rules laid down by Sir Joshua, he says: “I believe Gainsborough painted the portrait of a boy dressed in blue, now in the possession of Lord Grosvenor, to show the fallacy of this doctrine.”

That seems to be all there is to it; and, once started, the story became widespread and was handed on from pen to pen and from lip to lip, until nearly everybody believes it.

Let us turn, however, to some of the authorities. First to F. G. Stephens:

“Master Jonathan Buttall was the son of Mr. Jonathan Buttall, an ironmonger in an extensive way of business, living at 31 Greek Street (at the corner of King Street), Soho, between 1728 (if not before) and 1768, when he died. According to the _Book for a Rainy Day_, he was ‘an immensely rich man.’ The younger Buttall continued in the business of his father until 1796, when his effects were sold by Sharpe and Coxe, the well-known auctioneers. These effects included premises in Soho and the City, a share in Drury Lane Theatre, many drawings by Gainsborough, and pictures by the same hand and others, wine, and musical instruments. It has been asserted that a _Blue Boy_ (for there can hardly be a doubt that more than one version of the work exists) was sold on this occasion.

“A story has been credited that _The Blue Boy_ was produced by Gainsborough to refute a dictum of Sir Joshua Reynolds, delivered in his _Eighth Discourse_ to the Students of the Royal Academy, December 10, 1778: ‘It ought, in my opinion to be indispensably observed, that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm, mellow color, yellow, red, or a yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colors be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support and set off these warm colors; and for this purpose, a small proportion of cold colors will be sufficient. Let this conduct be reversed; let the light be cold and the surrounding colors warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power of Art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid and harmonious.’

“It is obvious that the _Eighth Discourse_ may have been delivered covertly to depreciate a picture which had been exhibited eight years before, but this is not likely; or it may be assumed that the painting was produced to demonstrate the futility of the President’s counsel. It is obvious that Gainsborough might, and probably did, find occasion to illustrate a principle which is apparently opposed to the dictum of Reynolds, without reference to the _Eighth Discourse_, or previous utterance of the P. R. A. Van Dyck repeatedly employed masses of blue in draperies, with results which are at least equal to those of the picture before us. The _Children of Charles the First_ at Windsor is an example of the fact.[34] Leslie and every practical critic recognized that Gainsborough had evaded the full and just method of controverting the declaration of Sir Joshua rather than successfully assailed it.

“The picture before us is known to have been exhibited at the British Institution with a collection of Gainsborough’s works--the first formed independently of the artist and his wife--in 1814, under the title of _Portrait of a Youth_ and again at the same place, in 1834, as ‘117, _A Young Gentleman in a Landscape_; the Picture known as _The Boy in Blue_.’ It was at Manchester in 1857; the International Exhibition in 1862; and at the Royal Academy in 1870. The last occasion evoked the discussion above alluded to, when the other _Blue Boy_ became prominent. The question may be summed up by saying that probably the younger Buttall had a version of his own portrait, while the Prince had another.

“Reynolds, by the way of supporting his own dictum, produced _A Yellow Boy_ in the ‘_Portrait of Charles, Earl of Dalkeith_’ with an owl and a dog, which was No. 132 at the Grosvenor Exhibition, in 1884. ‘_A Portrait of a Lady_,’ by Gainsborough, known as ‘_The Blue Lady_’ was at the British Institution in 1859; ‘_The Pink Boy_’ (Master Nicholls, grandson of Dr. Mead), by Gainsborough, was at the Academy in 1879, No. 39; it has recently been sold to a member of the Rothschild family. _The Blue Boy_ is at once the complement and the antithesis of _Mrs. Graham_ (born Cathcart), now in the Scottish National Gallery (Edinburgh).”

Turning now to M. H. Spielmann in _British Portrait Painting_:

“In the view expressed by the late F. G. Stephens and others--an opinion I am inclined to share--the portrait known as _The Blue Boy_, more properly Master Jonathan Buttall, belongs to the year 1770, or thereabouts, and not to a period ten years later, as is argued by those who desire, in the face of internal evidence, to apply to it a passage--usually cited incorrectly--in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s _Eighth Discourse_ (delivered in 1778), against the use of masses of cold blue. The stricture could not possibly apply to this picture, which triumphs by virtue of its _warm_ blue, as it does by nobility of pose (more suggestive of a prince, as we imagine a prince should be, than of the son of a wealthy ironmonger of Greek Street), by the well controlled power and dignity made manifest throughout and by the brilliant brush charged with fat paint. The finely posed head with its admirably expressed character of boyhood and a good deal of sturdy doggedness behind the intelligent eyes, is rendered a little more heavily than is Gainsborough’s wont; but that it is a masterpiece of portraiture, as it is of color, cannot be challenged. This portrait, which from its manner may be believed to have been painted eight years before the father’s death and not two years after it, is the first to show Gainsborough’s outstanding genius as a painter of independent thought and striking modernity. At the same time it should be pointed out an earlier _Blue Boy_ by him exists in the portrait of his nephew, Edward Gardiner, painted in 1768.

“Here in Master Buttall is Gainsborough’s first great invention both in matter and manner, almost a challenge to Van Dyck’s reputation, but painted in a scheme of color Van Dyck never thought of, and would probably never have tried if he had. In handling it is Gainsborough’s first link with Watteau in its broken tints and fearless lightness of handling of the drapery, in its fascinating play of light and shade, its delightful silhouette and cast shadows. It is difficult to imagine how the composition could be bettered; the picture, by itself, had no others come from the same brush, would have immortalized the painter.”

Finally, Sir Walter Armstrong agrees, too, with the Stephens theory:

“Those who cling to the old traditions quote the style of _The Blue Boy_ in support of the notion that it could not have been painted before 1779. I confess that, to me, it now seems, after much and close observation, to point the other way. The loaded _impasto_, the ruddy carnations, the tendency to brown and beyond it in the shadows, the preoccupation with force, seem all to belong to about the same period as the group at Knole and to be inconsistent with the feathery lightness, freedom, and gaiety which mark Gainsborough’s work towards the end of his life. The most significant comparison may be made with the National Gallery _Mrs. Siddons_. Here again blue, and a franker blue than that of the Master Buttall, is the dominant note. But the painting is more assured, the handling lighter and more prompt, the shadows more transparent, and the figure, as a whole, truer to its illumination. It would not be fair to dwell too much on the contrast between the flesh painting of _The Blue Boy_ and that of the _Mrs. Siddons_, for I fancy the peculiar white bloom of the latter’s skin is due to the fact that she sat in her paint. But it must not be overlooked that even in the portraits of pretty women, that of _Eliza Linley_ for instance, painted about 1770, there is a fullness of color we do not find ten years later. Taking everything into account, it seems to me that the old tradition of _The Blue Boy_ must be given up, and that the Duke of Westminster’s picture, so far from being an answer to Reynolds, was one of the many things that provoked his dictum, Gainsborough replying, if he took the trouble to reply at all, with the _Mrs. Siddons_ and those other portraits, painted in the last ten years of his life, in which blue, canary yellow, and other cool tints are made the centres of the color scheme.”

Buttall and Gainsborough continued their relations. Buttall was one of the “few friends Gainsborough respected and whom he desired should attend his funeral at Kew. Buttall outlived Gainsborough seventeen years and died in December, 1805, as the _Morning Herald_ notes: “Died, on Friday last, at his house in Oxford Street, Jonathan Buttall, Esq., a gentleman whose amiable manners and good disposition will cause him to be ever regretted by his friends.”

GENERAL PHILIP HONYWOOD.

_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._

_Collection of
Mr. John Ringling._

When Gainsborough exhibited this portrait in London in 1765 it created quite a stir, as it was a departure from the style of any portrait by that artist; and when it was sent home to _Mark Hall_, the seat of the Honywood family in Essex, a new room had to be built in order to accommodate it, as the canvas measures nearly ten feet square (96¾ × 82¼).

This has the reputation of being the finest equestrian portrait ever painted by Gainsborough. Fulcher writes of it:

“Never was the amenity of landscape more happily displayed. Through a richly wooded scene wherein the sturdy oak and silvery-barked birch are conspicuous, the soldier, mounted on a bay horse, appears to be passing, wearing a scarlet dress which contrasts finely with the mass of surrounding foliage. Nothing can be easier than his attitude, as with one hand he curbs his charger and with the other holds his sword which seems to flash in the sun. The picturesque design of this portrait, its brilliant coloring, its bold yet careful execution, Gainsborough never surpassed. No wonder that George III wished to become the possessor of it and no wonder that Horace Walpole wrote of it in his catalogue ‘very good.’ Of the nine pictures which decorated the walls of _Mark Hall_ grand staircase, three were by Gainsborough and included the remarkable portrait of General Honywood. It is the largest work by that master and has the reputation also of being the finest equestrian portrait ever painted by Gainsborough, competing only with Van Dyck’s _Portrait of Charles I_ in the Prado Gallery, Madrid, with which it has more than once been compared.”

_Collection of Mr. John Ringling_

GENERAL PHILIP HONYWOOD

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

The landscape, it is interesting to say, is a part of the park at _Mark Hall_. General Philip Honywood of _Mark Hall_ came of an old Kentish family deriving its origin from a place called _Honewood_ or _Hunewood_ in the parish of Postling in Kent, where they had held lands since the Norman Conquest. General Philip Honywood was born in 1710 and succeeded his nephew in 1758. He was a General of His Majesty’s forces, Colonel of the Third Royal Dragoon Guards, Governor of the Town and Citadel of Kinston-upon-Hull and was also member of Parliament for thirty-one years for the borough of Appleby in the County of Westmoreland. Philip Honywood was always familiarly called “the General” and he died in 1785.

Until 1878 this portrait remained in possession of the Honywood family at _Mark Hall_.

Sir Walter Armstrong in his _Gainsborough_ writes:

“It represents the General riding across the canvas from left to right. He wears a scarlet uniform and carries his sword, unsheathed, in his right hand; he has no scabbard. The horse, a rich bay, is a little too long. The painter has not taken the precaution to draw him in before commencing the figure, and so the fore-quarters are separated from the hind by rather too much middle-piece. This mistake is still more conspicuous in the _Colonel St. Leger_ at Hampton Court, where a quite unreasonable amount of horse shows behind the figure. Otherwise, the Honywood picture is as successful in design as it is in all other ways. The landscape is one of the finest backgrounds ever painted and reminds one of the backgrounds to some of those equestrian portraits by Velasquez which Gainsborough never saw. It is curious that Reynolds had sent a _General on Horseback_ to the Exhibition of 1761. Many things point to the probability that Gainsborough made an annual visit to London during the exhibition and it is quite likely that the apparition of Sir Joshua’s ‘General’ suggested the treatment of his own.”

The Reynolds referred to above is the portrait of _Lord Ligonier_ now in the National Gallery, London.

THE HARVEST WAGGON.

_Thomas Gainsborough
(1727–1788)._

_Collection of
Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

This picture bears comparison with Gainsborough’s famous _Market Cart_ in the National Gallery, London. Some critics even prefer it. It is painted in oils on canvas (48 × 59 inches) and represents a countryside and a scene very familiar to the painter. The country is rugged with a wheel track winding from the left foreground away into the distance towards the blue hills. On the left, there are massive boulders overgrown with shrubbery and trees with russet foliage overhanging the lane. The rustic dray-cart, laden with laughing country folk, is halted to enable a young girl to clamber up over the wheel and into the arms of a youth who bends forward to help her. The three horses stand placidly while the driver adjusts the collar of the leader. A panting dog capers by the cart and two sheep that have strayed from their flock are seen resting by the boulders. The rock in the foreground is signed with the initials “T. G.”

_The Harvest Waggon_ gains particular interest because the two young girls--one seated in the waggon and one climbing up over the wheel--are Gainsborough’s daughters. The horses, too, are portraits--horses that belonged to John Wiltshire, the chief carrier of Bath, and the cart is one of Wiltshire’s “flying waggons.” In some accounts of John Wiltshire he is represented as an ordinary dray-man, who drove his own carts and made deliveries. This was not the case, however. John Wiltshire was a man of importance in Bath, having built up a large “carrying business” (which we would to-day call express), with a regular service of “flying waggons,” always going back and forth from his warehouses in Broad Street, Bath, to the _White Swan_ at Holborn Bridge, London. Wiltshire was elected Mayor of Bath in 1772 and gave a great entertainment at the Town Hall to the gentry and fashionables, giving thereby “much offense to the people in trade” who were not invited. Some idea of the speed of these “flying waggons” may be had from Gainsborough’s letter to Garrick relative to the delivery of the latter’s portrait:

“The picture is to go to London by the Wiltshire fly-waggon on Wednesday next and I believe will arrive by Saturday morning.”

John Wiltshire, who came of a good old family that had attained the rank of squires, lived in a fine mansion at Shockerwick near Bath, which had belonged to his father. This was quite a place of _rendez-vous_ for the notable personages who visited Bath. “There,” it was said, “Anstey had a beech tree, Gainsborough an elm, and Quin an arm-chair, while Fielding, Allen, and their hospitable host, Wiltshire, enjoyed the shades of its sylvan glades.”

Wiltshire was so devoted to Gainsborough and such an admirer of his paintings that he would never allow him to pay any bills for “carrying.” Yet he delivered all of Gainsborough’s finished pictures. After a time, upon Gainsborough’s insisting, Wiltshire replied: “When you think I have carried to the value of a little painting, I beg you will let me have one, sir; and I shall be more than paid.”

By degrees Wiltshire thus acquired his small, but very choice, collection of Gainsboroughs, which was sold at Shockerwick in 1867.

_The Harvest Waggon_ was one of these; and the way the picture came to be painted was this. On one occasion Gainsborough asked Wiltshire to lend him a horse for a model. The generous Wiltshire saddled and bridled one of his horses and sent it to Gainsborough for a present. Gainsborough painted this horse and made, as Fulcher says, “a remarkably fine study of this animal.” Gainsborough now returned the compliment. He painted _The Harvest Waggon_ and sent it to Wiltshire as a present. Wiltshire was overjoyed, for here was his own waggon; here were his own horses; and here were the artist’s own daughters!

_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

THE HARVEST WAGGON

--_Thomas Gainsborough_]

On giving _The Harvest Waggon_ to Wiltshire, Gainsborough said it _pleased him more than any picture he had ever painted_.

From the Collections of Thomas Gibbons, Esq., Hanover Terrace, Regents Park, of the Rev. Benjamin Gibbons, Hanover Terrace, Regents Park, and of Sir Lionel Phillips, London, _The Harvest Waggon_ passed into the Collection of the late Judge Elbert H. Gary. It attracted great attention at the Gary Sale in New York, April, 1928, when it was sold at the Plaza Hotel for $875,000, the highest figure that any picture has ever reached at auction.

JOHN WALTER TEMPEST.

_George Romney
(1734–1802)._

_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field._

It would be hard to find in all the range of portraiture, at any time and in any place, a work more charming, true, sincere, natural, and ingratiating than this adorable boy with his beloved horse. You can see at a glance that they love each other.

Everything about the picture is delightful: the coloring, the handsome, sweet, and dreamy boy with his unspeakable grace and gentleness, the fine horse, so contented, and the suave landscape--all make both a portrait and a picture that will live for all time. No changes in fashion can ever destroy its beauty and its appeal. Moreover, Romney has succeeded in suggesting here a young boy’s dreams and the friendship between a boy and a horse. The relation between the two, as they enjoy a pause in their jaunt through the woodland, is marvellously expressed. The relation of these figures to the landscape is such that we feel as if we, too, were in this lovely, English, sylvan spot. We seem to hear the plash of the tiny waterfall and the sound of the horse’s lips as he quenches his thirst. In just one moment more and the sweet, gentle, dreamy boy will pat his friend’s warm, brown neck, leap lightly on his back and off they will go merrily

“to seek fresh woods and pastures new.”

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field_

JOHN WALTER TEMPEST

--_George Romney_]

The picture is in oils on canvas (90 × 58 inches) and was painted in 1779–1780. In the _Catalogue Raisonné_ of Romney’s works we read:

“Whole length, when a youth, standing, facing towards and looking to the front; long hair; purple dress, white turned-down collar, white stockings and black shoes with silver buckles; standing by his horse, which is drinking at a stream to the left; right hand holding the reins; left hand holding whip; trees in the distance.”

For several years this lovely picture was in the Collection of Asher Wertheimer, Esq., of London.

John Walter Tempest was the only son of John Tempest, Esq., of Sherburn, County Durham, and member of Parliament for Durham. He died in 1793 at Brighthelmstone, where he had gone for his health.

The German critic, August Grisebach, has a profound admiration for this portrait. Writing in _Die Kunst für Alle_ (1908), he says:

“As a new representation of the half-grown boy Romney’s _John Walter Tempest_ stands next to the _Blue Boy_. In place of the warm lighting of the brilliant silk of the correctly adorned boy in Van Dyck style and the aristocratic pose of the manufacturer’s son, is the simple cloth coat of subdued violet against the light-brown horse, so quiet and reserved in color and line, similar to an antique relief.”

_The Strawberry Girl_ is reckoned among the most original of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s works. Surely _John Walter Tempest_ is one of Romney’s most brilliant triumphs! Moreover, the picture is highly original.