Important Old Master Paintings and European Works of Art Including Property of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

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Lot 289
  • 289

Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. Sudbury 1727-1788 London

Estimate
18,000 - 22,000 USD
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Description

  • Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.
  • Portrait of Dr. William Walcot
  • oil on canvas, within a painted oval 

Provenance

J.C.C. Vowler collection, by 1937;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, March 10, 1965, lot 121, bought by Leger Galleries for $2,520;

Exhibited

London, Ministry of Works, on loan by 1937;
London, Leger Galleries, English Watercolours, November 18 - December 31, 1970;
New York, Finch College Museum of Art, The Richard H. Rush
Collection, February 25 - April 25, 1971, no. 39;
Hanover, Dartmouth College, Hood Museum of Art. 
  

Literature

E. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, 1958, p. 94, no. 698.

Catalogue Note

Dr. William Walcot (1719-1806) was a gentleman farmer from Northamptonshire, with land outside Oundle, Ashton, Polebrook, and Walsoken in Norfolk.  When the painting was sold in 1965 (see Provenance), there was an old label on the reverse reading  "Thomas Gainsborough pinxit, Bath June 11th, 1767". This label is no longer survives, but given the age of the sitter in the portrait, as well as the style of the painting, this date would appear to have been likely.   A pendant to this portrait, depicting Mrs. Walcot (née Mary Creed), was sold as lot 120 in the same sale as the present portrait, is now at Hellens Manor, Herefordshire.