Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Henry Scipio Reitlinger (d. 1950),
by whose estate sold, London, Sotheby's, 6 March 1975, lot 226, to Morton Morris;
from whom aquired in 1977 by the late Colin Hunter (1926-2013)

Washington, National Gallery of Art, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Gallery, and New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, Gainsborough Drawings, 1983-84, no. 33 (catalogue by J. Hayes and L. Stainton);
London, Park Lane Hotel, World of Watercolours Fair Loan Exhibition in Aid of Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, 1987

J. Hayes, Gainsborough's Landscape Painting, London 1982, vol. 1, p. 148, and no. 100;
Idem, 'Gainsborough Drawings: A Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonne,' Master Drawings, 1983, vol. XXI, no. 4, p. 390, no. 978

This rare work has been well preserved and carefully presented. Although there may be evidence of some extremely minor rubbing to the chalk, in general the medium has remained strong and fresh. Gainsborough has used a sheet of blue/grey paper and this has retained its original tone. The sheet has had all four of its corners replaced. There is a small stain to the paper (perhaps a fox-mark) located at the extreme right hand edge of the sheet. The work has not been laid down. For further information on this work please contact Mark Griffith-Jones on 0207 293 5083 or mark.griffithjones@sothebys.com
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In this rare figurative drawing, Gainsborough depicts an elegant shepherdess, her swain, a dog and a lamb in a woodland glade.  The work dates to the first years of the 1760s, a time when the young artist was establishing himself as one of the leading portrait painters of his generation.  In 1759, when still only thirty-two, he moved from provincial Ipswich to fashionable Bath and, two years later, he exhibited his first painting at the Society of Artists in London.

Despite this success with the brush, he loved to draw and regarded his works on paper as an important part of his oeuvre. These drawings were much admired by his contemporaries and his friend William Jackson (d. 1830) went as far as to declare that: ‘If I were to rest his [Gainsborough’s] reputation upon one point it should be on his drawings. No man ever possessed methods so various in producing effect, and all were excellent.’¹

Stylistically the present lot has been compared to Gainsborough’s Portrait of Carl Fredrick Abel, a drawing that also dates to the early 1760s and is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.²  Lindsey Stainton and Dr. Hayes have also highlighted that the work is perhaps ‘as close as Gainsborough ever came to the French style of rustic galanterie’,³ a genre mastered by artists such as François Boucher.

This drawing was completely unknown to scholars until its appearance at auction at Sotheby’s in 1975, where it was sold by the estate of Henry Scipio Reitlinger. Reitlinger was a passionate collector of ceramics, paintings, prints and drawings.  After his death in 1950, much of his collection was given to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.  The drawing's early provenance is unknown but it has been suggested that it may have descended through the artist’s family to his daughter Margaret.  Her collection was dispersed at Christie’s in 1831.  The work was acquired in 1977 by the late Colin Hunter, a distinguished collector of British drawings.

We are grateful to Hugh Belsey, M.B.E. for his help in cataloguing this lot.

1.  J. Hayes and L. Stainton, Gainsborough Drawings, exh. cat., Washington 1983, p. 15
2.  ibid., p. 86
3.  ibid.