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A young, light-skinned, rosy-cheeked child stands against a landscape of trees and rolling hills in this vertical portrait painting. Some areas are loosely painted, especially in the background, giving the portrait a soft look. The boy stands with his body angled to our left but he turns to look at us with clear gray-blue eyes under faint brows. He has a straight nose and his dark rose-pink, heart-shaped lips are closed. His wispy, honey-brown hair curls around his face and down the back of his neck. He wears a long, white, dress-like garment with bands of satin on the short sleeves and around the bottom. The garment is gathered at the waist with a wide, robin’s egg-blue sash tied in a bow, with ends that reach down to the ground from his left hip, on our right. The boy holds a small bouquet of white and yellow flowers white moss-green buds and stems in front of his belly with his left hand. His other arm hangs by his side and he holds a large black hat with a fluffy plume. The toe of one red shoe pokes out under his garment. Around the boy, the grasses, bushes, and trees are painted loosely in muted greens, browns, and golden yellows. The sky deepens from smoke gray at the upper left corner to pale yellow on the far-distant horizon.

Thomas Gainsborough

Master John Heathcote, c. 1771/1772

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 58

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 127 × 101.2 cm (50 × 39 13/16 in.)

framed: 159.4 × 133.3 × 14 cm (62 3/4 × 52 1/2 × 5 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by The Fuller Foundation, Inc.

Accession Number

1961.2.1

Artists / Makers

Thomas Gainsborough (artist) British, 1727 - 1788

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Painted for the sitter's parents, John [d. 1795] and Lydia [d. 1822] Heathcote, Conington Castle, Huntingdonshire; by descent to their great-grandson, John Moyer Heathcote [1834-1912]; purchased 1913 from the Heathcote estate by (Thos. Agnew and Sons Ltd., London); sold the same year to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[1] sold c.1913 to Herbert, 1st Baron Michelham [1851-1919], Hellingly, Sussex; (his estate sale, Hampton & Sons, on the premises, 20 Arlington Street, London, 23-24 November 1926, 2nd day, no. 292); Captain Jefferson Davis Cohn, Paris,[2] on behalf of (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold March or April 1927 to Alvan T. Fuller [1878-1958], Boston;[3] The Fuller Foundation, Boston; gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Agnew stock books, recorded by The Provenance Index, J. Paul Getty Trust, Santa Monica.

[2] The Getty Provenance Index records Cohn as the buyer at the Michelham sale. See also Colin Simpson, The Artful Partners: The Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen, London, 1987: 179-180, for an account of Cohn's part in the sale.

[3] An undated note in the NGA curatorial files records a telephone conversation between Ross Watson and Peter Fuller, son of Alvan T. Fuller, who said that his father purchased this painting in England, probably at Thomas Agnew & Sons in July 1927. However, the late Sir Geoffrey Agnew, in Agnew's 1817-1967 , London, 1967: 49, states that Governor Fuller of Boston was a faithful Agnew's client, that they acted on his behalf at many auctions, and that the only picture he ever bought from Duveen was a Gainsborough that Agnew's had failed to buy for him at the Michelham sale.

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Cohn, Jefferson Davis, Captain
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Fuller Foundation, Inc.
Fuller, Alvan T.
Heathcote, John Moyer
Heathcote, John and Lydia
Sale, London
Stern, 1st Baron Michelham, Herbert, Sir

Exhibition History

1864: Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Masters, British Institution, London, 1864, no. 184.

1928: Exhibition of Paintings Loaned by Governor Alvan T. Fuller, Art Club, Boston, 1928, no. 6.

1939: Paintings, Drawings, Prints from Private Collections in New England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1939, no. 48, pl. 26.

1959: A Memorial Exhibition of the Collection of the Honorable Alvan T. Fuller, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1959, no. 22, repro.

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is plain woven; it has been lined. The ground is white, thinly applied. There is a very thin pinkish-brown imprimatura that serves as the middle tone in the costume and hair and provides a vibrant contrast in the sky. The painting is executed fairly thinly with opaque paints freely blended wet into wet; this is followed, in the flesh tones, by glazes of red and by a very fine, distinct application of the details of the features, and, in the landscape, by slashing distinct highlights. There is limited impasto in such details as the bouquet of flowers. The painting is in good condition apart from slight abrasion; retouching is minimal. The moderately thick natural resin varnish, lightly pigmented with black, has not discolored.

Bibliography

1856: Fulcher, George Williams. Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.. 2d rev. ed. London, 1856: 228.

1898: Armstrong, Sir Walter. Gainsborough & His Place in English Art. London, 1898: 197; popular ed., London, 1904: 269.

1951: Taylor, Basil. Gainsborough. London, 1951: 22, pl. 10.

1958: Waterhouse, Sir Ellis. Gainsborough. London, 1958.

1962: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 124, color repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 319, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 55.

1968: Cooke, Hereward Lester. Painting Lessons from the Great Masters. London, 1968: 208, repro. (two details), color repro. opposite.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 145-146, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 47, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 144, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 495, color repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 537, no. 493, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 166, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 82-84, color repro. 83.

1999: Zuffi, Stefano and Francesca Castria, La peinture baroque. Translated from Italian by Silvia Bonucci and Claude Sophie Mazéas. Paris, 1999: 364, color repro.