Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough painted portraits of the British gentry with light, feathery brushwork and silvery colour, and set many of his sitters in open landscape. Landscape was his real love, and his rustic scenes of cottages and country children were admired as much as his portraits.

He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1727, trained in London with the French engraver Hubert Gravelot, and worked in Ipswich and Bath before settling in London in 1774. He was a founding member of the Royal Academy. The Blue Boy is in the Huntington in California, and Mr and Mrs Andrews is in the National Gallery, London. He died in 1788.

Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher is one of his “fancy pictures” of country children, and his portraits of his daughter Mary show a more private side.