Lot 68
68
Gainsborough Dupont* (1754-1797)
The property of the LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART, Sold to Benefit Future Acquisitions
Gainsborough Dupont* (1754-1797)

Rural Courtship

Details
Gainsborough Dupont* (1754-1797)
Rural Courtship
oil on canvas
49¾ x 39¾in. (126.4 x 101cm.)
Provenance
The artist's studio; Christie's, London, April 10-11, 1797 (=2nd day), lot 77 (15gns. to Caswell).
Rev. Edward Gardiner (great nephew of Thomas Gainsborough) and by descent to
Mrs. Harward, Clevedon, Somerset; her sale, Christie's, London, May 11, 1923, lot 102 as Thomas Gainsborough.
with M. Knoedler & Co., New York as Thomas Gainsborough.
Percy R. Pyne II, New York, 1926.
with Ehrich-Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1937, as Thomas Gainsborough.
with Thos. Agnew's, London, 1957, as Thomas Gainsborough.
Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Battson, as Thomas Gainsborough by whom bequeathed to
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Literature
G.W. Fulcher, Life of Gainsborough R.A., 1856, p. 228 as Thomas Gainsborough.
Sir W. Armstrong, Gainsborough, 1898, p. 205 as Thomas Gainsborough.
A.E. Fletcher, Thomas Gainsborough R.A., 1904, no. 206 as Thomas Gainsborough.
W.T. Whitley, The Gainsborough Family Portraits in Studio, August 1923, p. 66 as Thomas Gainsborough.
E. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, 1958, no. 904, p. 113-4 as Thomas Gainsborough.
J. Hayes, Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, I, 1982, pp. 190-1, 194, no. 10 and p. 207, fig. 235 under 'catalogue of Dupont's Landscapes and Family compositions'.
Exhibited
London, Grosvenor Gallery, Gainsborough, 1885, no. 73 as Thomas Gainsborough (lent by Rev. Edward R. Gardiner).
New York, M. Knoedler's, Dec. 3-15, 1923, no. 14 as Thomas Gainsborough.
Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Institute, Survey of British Painting, May 10-June 12, 1938, no. 47 as Thomas Gainsborough (lent by Newhouse Galleries).

Lot Essay

Traditionally accepted as the work of Thomas Gainsborough, the present painting was first identified by John Hayes as lot 77 in Dupont's studio sale of 1797 (op. cit., pp. 190 and 194). He further notes a pencil sketch for the painting, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (ibid., p. 206, fig. 234) which is identical in style and technique to a group of twelve Dupont drawings in the Huntington Art Gallery, Pasadena (see J. Hayes, The Drawings of Gainsborough Dupont, Master Drawings, III, 1965, pp. 243-56, no. 3).