Thomas Gainsborough R.A. 1727-1788

Royal Academy, Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters, 1875, no.231 (lent by Sir Charles Mills, Bt., M.P.);

London, 45 Park Lane, Gainsborough Loan Exhibition, in aid of the Royal Northern Hospital, 18th February-31st March 1936, p.65, no.20;

Dulwich Picture Gallery, A Nest of Nightingales, 1988, no.13:1

Catalogue of the Furniture, Porcelain, Pictures & c. at Camelford House, Park Lane, The Town Residence of Lord Hillingdon, compiled 1891, privately printed, p.37 (in the Red Drawing Room);

Sir Walter Armstrong, Gainsborough and His Place in English Art, 1898, p.203;

E.K. Waterhouse, 'Preliminary Checklist of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, Walpole Society, 1953, Vol.XXXIII, p.106;

E.K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, 1958, p.92, no.666 

Charles Henry Mills, 1st Lord Hillingdon, and his father Sir Charles Mills (fig.1), were prosperous bankers, partners in the well respected bank Glyn Mills.  They were both enthusiastic collectors, a passion which they shared with other notable banking families of the time, such as the Rothschilds and the Curries.  They formed a remarkable collection of furniture, porcelain and paintings, one of the finest in Britain in the nineteenth century. 

The prosperity of the Mills family goes back to the eighteenth century, when William Mills (1714-1782) advanced £10,000 to the bank of Vere, Glyn and Hallifax, on condition that he became a partner and that his nephew should eventually join the bank.  William Mills was the son of John Mills, a clerk in the Court of Chancery, and had inherited a substantial sum from his father. He married the only daughter of Sir John Salter, Lord Mayor of London, and inherited his father-in-law’s property at Willingdale Doe in Essex. Sir John Salter was prominent in trade to the East, supplying many of the goods traded in India, and this contact with the East India Company was important for the early year of the bank’s history. His property, which included the estate of Varde’s Hall near High Ongar in Essex, passed on his death in 1782 to his nephew William, who had become a director of the East India Company. William Mills Junior became M.P. for Coventry from 1805-1812 and bought the estate of Bisterne in the New Forest. William Mills Senior also left money to several other nephews, all the sons of his brother John who was Rector of Barford. These included Charles (1755-1826) who married Jane Digby, and Francis (1759-1851), who married Catherine Mordaunt. Charles became a director of the East India Company and a director of the bank. He was a confidant of Warren Hastings and became M.P. for Warwick. His younger brother Francis, one of the founders of the Garrick Club, lived for much of his life in Rome where he collected pictures, furniture and objects of vertue. His important collection of furniture and pictures, the latter including works by Canaletto, Greuze, Teniers and Boucher, passed to his nephew John, son of his brother William, and have remained at Bisterne.

Another of William’s sons was Charles Mills, Lord Hillingdon’s father, and himself a great collector. He married Emily, daughter of the banker Richard Cox of Hillingdon, and his collection of French furniture and works of art is considered to be one of the finest to be put together in England in the nineteenth century. It included the largest single accumulation of Louis XV and Louis XVI porcelain-mounted furniture ever to be assembled. Some of the finest of the collection, together with other furniture and Sevres porcelain, was sold in 1936 to Lord Duveen. In 1947 it was bought by Samuel Kress and is now an important part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. According to family tradition, Charles was accustomed to walk home from the bank with his brothers Edward Wheler and Francis, stopping at the shops of London dealers ‘to buy a bit of Sevres on the way’.

Charles’ eldest son, Charles Henry, later Lord Hillingdon, became a partner of the bank in 1852 and senior partner in 1873. Educated at Eton and Christ Church he was a staunch Conservative politician, being M.P. for West Kent for twenty years.  He inherited, from his father and his uncles, a passion for collecting.  In 1853 he married Lady Louisa Lascelles, daughter of Henry Lascelles, 3rd Earl of Harewood. It is said that the Lascelles family were unhappy with the marriage. Emily Cox told her husband of their misgivings at their son’s marriage, suggesting that the marriage might be a bitter pill to swallow, to which Sir Charles Mills replied: "Then, my dear, we must gild it". 

The great Hillingdon collection was housed in three substantial mansions owned by the family.  The first to be acquired was Camelford House (fig.2), a house on Park Lane, built by Lord Camelford, William Pitt's elder brother, in 1771.  By 1787 he was thinking of letting his 'palace in Oxford Street', and it was occupied at first by his daughter and son-in-law.  Later tenants included Lord Grenville, the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg and the Prince Regent's daughter, Charlotte, who lived there with her husband Prince Leopold.  Mills took the lease on the house in 1828 and the family remained there until 1907.  The neo-classical interior with its fine plasterwork was a perfect setting for the French furniture which Mills had been collecting.  In 1854 Mills began the building of Hillingdon Court, a grand house in the French classical style with an estate of over three thousand acres.  It remained in the family until 1919.  In 1872, Lord Hillingdon acquired a third house, Wildernesse Park (fig.3), near Sevenoaks in Kent, which he bought from John, 3rd Marquess Camden for £150,000.  Its fine gardens and pleasure grounds were originally laid out by Sir John Pratt, the celebrated Lord Chief Justice, in the early eighteenth century.  The family continued to occupy the house until 1924. 

After the family left Camelford House, they moved to Vernon House in Park Place.  Much of the collection was housed there and later at Messing Park in Essex.

Hillingdon's particular interest as a collector was in the field of painting, and his collection was wide ranging.  He seems to have had a particular feel for English eighteenth century paintings, and acquired a number of masterpieces by Sir Joshua Reynolds including Mrs Abington as Miss Prue (bought privately in 1877 from the 3rd Earl of Morley), Caroline Cox, Lady Champneys (inherited from his mother's family), Theophila Palmer Reading (bought from Agnews in 1873) and Miss Hickey (bought in 1877). He also acquired Gainsborough’s Richard Tickell from Agnew in 1874 and Romney’s Mrs Carwardine and Son from Wertheimer in 1888. The beautiful portrait of a lady as Evelina was bought for him by Colnaghi in 1886. A fine landscape by Constable of Hampstead Heath, signed and dated 1824, was bought in 1874, and is now on loan to the Whitworth Art Gallery.  His interests also covered more contemporary works and he owned two fine works by Rossetti, Rosa Triplex and Bruna Brunelleschi (now in the FitzWilliam Museum, Cambridge) and two works by Lord Leighton, the portrait of his daughter Miss Mabel Mills and Juggling Girl. His ancestor Francis had shown a great affinity with Italian painting and Lord Hillingdon followed in this tradition, buying an important set of four views of Dresden by Bellotto.  These pictures were originally commissioned by Heinrich Graf von Bruhl, part of whose fine collection was later acquired by Catherine the Great. 

Most of this great collection has been dispersed.  The four pictures offered for sale hung together in the Red Drawing Room in Camelford House, surrounded by important French furniture.  Their exceptional quality is a tribute to Lod Hillingdon's taste and discernment.

This exceptional portrait was painted in c.1780, when the artist was at the height of his powers, probably to celebrate the sitter’s marriage to the beautiful Mary Linley, whose family were close friends of the artist. Gainsborough always enjoyed the company of musicians, actors and writers, and though he complained of having to paint portraits, the images of his musical and literary friends such as Garrick, Carl Friedrich Abel and J.C. Bach are both sympathetic and spontaneous in feeling. He enjoyed painting them and his enjoyment contributed to the success of the portraits. Tickell was a writer and playwright, and had also married the daughter of one of his closest musical friends. Furthermore Tickell’s colourful character would have appealed to Gainsborough, and the evident sympathy which he felt for the sitter helps to place this picture amongst the very best of his London portraits.

The Tickell family came originally from Cumberland. In the seventeenth century the Reverend John Tickell of Penrith had been vicar of Egremont, south of Whitehaven, and later of Bridekirk, north of Cockermouth. The sitter's grandson, Thomas Tickell (1686-1740), was a poet, admired by both Pope and Addison – his best work was a fine elegy on Addison’s death. He finally settled in Ireland, living at Glasnevin, near Dublin. His eldest son was John, father of Richard Tickell, the subject of the present portrait. Though John lived at Glasnevin, Richard was born in Bath. He entered the Middle Temple in 1768 and after being called to the Bar, he held a lucrative post as commissioner of bankruptcy, a post which was later confirmed with the help of Tickell’s friend Garrick, when he was temporarily deprived of it in 1778. Tickell inherited his grandfather’s literary ability and in 1778 The Camp, described as a musical entertainment, was put on with great success. The Camp was inspired by the idiosyncratic reaction of the Duke of Devonshire to the events of 1778 when France, having recognised the independence of the American colonies, declared war on England. Believing in an imminent invasion, the Duke led a militia to Cox Heath near Middlesex to be ready to defend the capital. His wife Georgiana and other ladies were in attendance, dressed in military costume. His presence caused great interest and inspired both A Trip to Cox-Heath (put on at Sadler's Wells) and The Camp, which played fifty-seven times in the 1778-9 season and ran each season until 1783. Thomas Linley the Elder provided incidental music and much of the rest was the joint work of Tickell and Sheridan.

In November the same year, he had even greater success with Anticipation, a clever satire forecasting the proceedings at the opening of parliament. It was widely praised and Edmund Gibbon wrote to Holroyd on 24th November 1778: "In town we think it an excellent piece of humour (the author is one Tickell). Burke and C. Fox are pleased with their own speeches but serious patriots groan that such things should be turned to farce". The Prince of Wales was amongst those who praised Tickell’s talents. On 13th December 1781 his opera The Carnival of Venice, in three acts, was put on at Drury Lane with music by Thomas Linley and contributions from Linley’s daughter, Elizabeth, wife of Sheridan. His last theatrical work, an adaptation of the Gentle Shepherd, was performed on 27th May 1789.

On 25th July 1780, Tickell married Mary Linley, thus linking himself with an important musical family, as well as with Richard Brinsley Sheridan (fig.2) who had married Mary’s sister Elizabeth in 1773. Tickell’s father-in-law, Thomas Linley, was the leading figure in musical life in Bath in the mid-eighteenth century, and as a singing teacher he was considered to be unrivalled in England. In 1771 he was appointed Director of Music for the New Assembly Rooms. All his nine children showed great musical promise, particularly three of his daughters, Elizabeth, Mary and Maria who were fine singers and his son Tom who was a fine composer and violinist. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, a great beauty, famous for her oratorio singing, eloped to France with Richard Brinsley Sheridan and married him in April 1773. Linley was at first alarmed by his daughter’s action, but Sheridan’s subsequent success brought him round and they were reconciled. After her marriage, Elizabeth ceased to give public performances and Mary filled her place until her marriage in 1780.

Mary was three and a half years younger than her sister Elizabeth, but they were brought up together, attending the same boarding school. Throughout their life they kept up a lively correspondence, and the bond seemed to be strengthened by the fact that they both had to deal with wayward husbands. Mary shared her sister's musical talents, though it was as an actress that she first made her public appearance, aged eleven, in Man and Wife at the Theatre Royal. She later joined her sister as singer in oratorios and concerts, and only finally retired on her marriage to Tickell.

Tickell’s friendship with Sheridan went back several years before his marriage to Mary. The two men became close friends and boisterous drinking companions, and often visited taverns together where there would be much horse-play and many practical jokes. Elizabeth disapproved of Tickell’s wild behaviour and considered him to be a bad influence on her husband. She also disapproved of his morals, pointing out that he was known to have an illegitimate son and possibly also a daughter. After their marriage, the young couple spent their first year at Wells before moving into a grace-and-favour apartment at Hampton Court. In the mid 1780s they moved to Queen Anne Street, close to the Sheridans. Tickell spent much time with Sheridan, whom he clearly idolized. In the catalogue for the exhibition A Nest of Nightingales (op.cit.), Giles Waterfield cites a passage by the writer and publisher John Taylor from Records of My Life (1832): "Tickell had more of vanity, Sheridan more of pride. Tickell was perpetually gay and ambitious to shine in society; he was therefore always on the watch for some opportunity of making a brilliant sally, and often succeeded. Sheridan was contented to be easy and observing, and quietly waited till the stream of conversation should bear something worthy of his notice, and give occasion for some appropriate anecdote or sarcastic observation.....Sheridan seemed only intent on telling the plain matter of fact, and generally addressed himself to an individual. Tickell seemed desirous of impressing the person whom he addressed with a sense of his sprightliness and fancy". Mary’s attitude to her husband’s behaviour was one of tolerance – she was very fond of her brother-in-law and felt that Tickell was merely following in his footsteps. She wrote to her sister: "as for T-, he danced the whole night – the redoubtable Mrs Arabin was as handsome as ever yet I did not feel at all uneasy about her tho’ like a good wife I staid most of the evening in the other rooms….but then I knew I had a precious little spy in Jane and that I should have a particular account of all their flirtations" (Clementina Black, The Linleys of Bath, 1911, p.162).

Encouraged by Sheridan, Tickell began to write in support of Fox and in 1785 was elected to Brooks’s, the famous Whig club. On hearing the news, Mary wrote to her sister – "Tickell is delighted, the great point of his ambition is gained". The Tickells had three children, Elizabeth Ann (born in 1781), Richard Brinsley (born in 1782) and Samuel (born in 1785). Elizabeth married Ebenezer Roebuck and produced a son, John Arthur, who was a celebrated radical politician. Of the sons, one joined the navy, the other the Indian Civil Service, both with Sheridan’s help. Mary’s death in 1787 was a great blow to Tickell who went into mourning for a year, assuring his sister-in-law Elizabeth that he would never remarry. However her misgivings about him were confirmed when in October 1789 he married Miss Ley, the eighteen year old daughter of Captain Ley of the East Indiaman Berrington (whose portrait was painted by Romney). Tickell’s new wife had a small dowry but expensive tastes and it is said that despite her husband’s debts, she rode in a carriage-and-four. Tickell agreed that Elizabeth Sheridan would look after his three children. He seems never to have got over his first wife’s death, often visiting their old apartments at Hampton Court, where on 4th November 1793, he killed himself by jumping off a parapet.

By the time he painted this fine portrait of Tickell, Gainsborough had already painted a number of portraits of the Linley family. His portraits of Thomas Linley the Elder and his sons Thomas and Samuel were all bequeathed in 1835 by William Linley to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. He also painted Elizabeth and Thomas Linley together in 1768, when they were children (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown), and a half length portrait of Elizabeth from c.1775 is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His later full length portrait of Elizabeth, seated in a landscape, dates from 1785 and is one of the artist's finest late works (National Gallery of Art, Washington). One of the most beautiful of Gainsborough's portraits is The Linley Sisters (fig.1) (Dulwich Picture Gallery) which shows Elizabeth and Mary together as musicians. Tickell's wife Mary is shown seated, looking straight at the viewer. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1772 and the London Chronicle praised 'the face of the young lady who is seated' finding it 'uncommonly expressive and lovely'.