Portrait of Sir Francis Skipwith, 3rd Bt., (d.1778) of Newbold Pacey Hall, near Warwick, half-length, in a brown coat and green waistcoat with a hat under his left arm

Details

Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (1727-1788)
Portrait of Sir Francis Skipwith, 3rd Bt., (d.1778) of Newbold Pacey Hall, near Warwick, half-length, in a brown coat and green waistcoat with a hat under his left arm
oil on canvas
30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm.)

Provenance

G. Hulin de Loo; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 29 October 1947, lot 110, as 'Raeburn'.

Literature

E. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London, 1966, p. 100, no. 763.

Exhibited

Ghent, Musee des Beaux-Arts, La Peinture dans les collections gantoises, no. 90.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The sitter was the eldest son of Sir Fulwar Skipwith, who was member of parliament for Coventry in 1718, and his wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Dashwood, of Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. He succeeded his father in the baronetcy on 18th May, 1728. He married Ursula, youngest daughter of Thomas Cartwright of Aynho, Northamptonshire, by whom he had four sons. Waterhouse (op. cit.) dates this portrait, erroneously identified as of 'Captain Wade', to the later 1750s.
It is one of two autograph portraits of Francis Skipwith (the other descended through Sir Peyton Skipwith, now in a private collection). Gainsborough also painted two portraits of Francis Skipwith's wife, Lady Ursula (private collections, one erroneously identified as Lady Glenorchy, Christie's, London, 20 November, 1987, lot 94) and one of his son (private collection; Christie's, 10 December 1971, lot 94b).

Georges Hulin De Loo (1862-1945) was an important specialist in early Flemish pictures.

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