.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present work, a delightfully direct and truthful likeness of an officer of the First Dragoon Guards, painted in 1756, is extremely rare in being a signed and dated portrait from Gainsborough's Ipswich period. The sitter has been traditionally identified as the artist's friend and key patron in these early years, Philip Thicknesse. Although Waterhouse (op. cit.) casts doubt on this identification, there are a number of key facts that seem to support it.
Thicknesse, the artist's earliest biographer, was one of the first friends that the young Gainsborough made after moving his family from his home town of Sudbury to Ipswich, probably in the autumn of 1751. Thicknesse was the Lieutenant Governor of Landguard Fort, a small military installation some ten miles east of the city. Thicknesse was appointed Lieutenant Governor in February 1753 and shortly after commissioned from Gainsborough an overmantel depicting a topographical view of the Fort with Harwich in the background, which is now only known through an engraving.
The First Dragoon Guards were stationed at Landguard Fort and at least one other officer from the regiment, the Hon. Charles Hamilton sat to Gainsborough at this time for an extremely comparable bust-length portrait in a feigned stone oval (with Richard L. Feigen, New York). The use of these elaborate frames was familiar to the artist from his apprenticeship to the French-born engraver Gravelot in London where he helped to design the engravings for Houbracken's Illustrious Heads. The framing device of a painted, feigned oval had been introduced to British portraiture by the Dutchman Cornelius Johnson as a convenient way to deal with the problem of depicting a bust-length head on a rectangular canvas.
The identification of the present work as a portrait of Philip Thicknesse is supported by the close relationship between the sitter and the artist during this relatively quiet period in Gainsborough's career. The fact that the portrait is rare, in being both signed and dated, would suggest that the artist was putting a particularly personal stamp on his relationship with the sitter, beyond that of an ordinary commission. Furthermore, a comparison of the likeness of the sitter in the present work with the small full-length portrait of Thicknesse reclining in a landscape by Gainsborough that Waterhouse dates to the mid-1750s (City Art Museum, St. Louis) reveals close physiognomical similarities particularly in the shape of the eyes and face, as well as the dimple in the chin. This is further supported by a comparison with a miniature portrait of Thicknesse painted in 1757 by Nathaniel Hone (National Portrait Gallery, London).
Philip Thicknesse was born in 1719 at Farthingoe, Northamptonshire. Having spent a period of time living in a wooden cabin on an island near Savannah, Georgia, he joined the army through an independent company stationed at Jamaica. While on leave back in England he met and abducted from Southampton High Street, Maria Lanove, the daughter of a prosperous Huguenot refugee. They subsequently married and had three daughters but Maria and two of the daughters died of diptheria in 1749. By now living at Bath, Thicknesse started to gamble heavily and became addicted to laudanum. A widower for less than a year, he married in 1749, Lady Elizabeth Touchet, eldest daughter and heir of Lord Audley, 6th Earl of Castlehaven. Although her family objected to the match she brought with her a dowry of £5,000. With £1,200 of this, Thicknesse bought in February 1753 the lieutenant-governship of Landguard Fort. His quarrelsome tendencies no doubt exacerbated by addiction to laudanum, Thicknesse began a long feud with Colonel Vernon, later Lord Orwell of the Suffolk militia and as a result of losing a libel case was sent to prison for three months in March 1753. In 1762 his wife Elizabeth died, having given birth to a baby boy in 1760. She had been attended by her close friend, Ann Ford, an accomplished singer and viola da gamba player who had been involved in a scandalous affair wtih the aged Earl of Jersey in 1761. She and Thicknesse married in 1762 and they had four surviving children. At Bath, where the Thicknesses had moved to a house in the fashionable Crescent, Gainsborough painted a famous full-length portrait of Ann Ford, Mrs. Philip Thicknesse (Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinatti) although Thicknesse and the artist quarrelled and subsequently fell out. Thicknesse was also a friend of the artist's brother, the inventor Humphrey Gainsborough. Thicknesse was a travel writer and contributed frequently to The Gentleman's Magazine. He travelled extensively throughout Europe with his large family, writing accounts of their trips, their carriage often exciting much attention with their pet monkey, Jacko, dressed in a red jacket and boots riding postilion. Thicknesse's virulent temper and poisonous pen earned him the nickname 'Dr. Viper'. He died near Boulogne, France in 1792.
Thicknesse, the artist's earliest biographer, was one of the first friends that the young Gainsborough made after moving his family from his home town of Sudbury to Ipswich, probably in the autumn of 1751. Thicknesse was the Lieutenant Governor of Landguard Fort, a small military installation some ten miles east of the city. Thicknesse was appointed Lieutenant Governor in February 1753 and shortly after commissioned from Gainsborough an overmantel depicting a topographical view of the Fort with Harwich in the background, which is now only known through an engraving.
The First Dragoon Guards were stationed at Landguard Fort and at least one other officer from the regiment, the Hon. Charles Hamilton sat to Gainsborough at this time for an extremely comparable bust-length portrait in a feigned stone oval (with Richard L. Feigen, New York). The use of these elaborate frames was familiar to the artist from his apprenticeship to the French-born engraver Gravelot in London where he helped to design the engravings for Houbracken's Illustrious Heads. The framing device of a painted, feigned oval had been introduced to British portraiture by the Dutchman Cornelius Johnson as a convenient way to deal with the problem of depicting a bust-length head on a rectangular canvas.
The identification of the present work as a portrait of Philip Thicknesse is supported by the close relationship between the sitter and the artist during this relatively quiet period in Gainsborough's career. The fact that the portrait is rare, in being both signed and dated, would suggest that the artist was putting a particularly personal stamp on his relationship with the sitter, beyond that of an ordinary commission. Furthermore, a comparison of the likeness of the sitter in the present work with the small full-length portrait of Thicknesse reclining in a landscape by Gainsborough that Waterhouse dates to the mid-1750s (City Art Museum, St. Louis) reveals close physiognomical similarities particularly in the shape of the eyes and face, as well as the dimple in the chin. This is further supported by a comparison with a miniature portrait of Thicknesse painted in 1757 by Nathaniel Hone (National Portrait Gallery, London).
Philip Thicknesse was born in 1719 at Farthingoe, Northamptonshire. Having spent a period of time living in a wooden cabin on an island near Savannah, Georgia, he joined the army through an independent company stationed at Jamaica. While on leave back in England he met and abducted from Southampton High Street, Maria Lanove, the daughter of a prosperous Huguenot refugee. They subsequently married and had three daughters but Maria and two of the daughters died of diptheria in 1749. By now living at Bath, Thicknesse started to gamble heavily and became addicted to laudanum. A widower for less than a year, he married in 1749, Lady Elizabeth Touchet, eldest daughter and heir of Lord Audley, 6th Earl of Castlehaven. Although her family objected to the match she brought with her a dowry of £5,000. With £1,200 of this, Thicknesse bought in February 1753 the lieutenant-governship of Landguard Fort. His quarrelsome tendencies no doubt exacerbated by addiction to laudanum, Thicknesse began a long feud with Colonel Vernon, later Lord Orwell of the Suffolk militia and as a result of losing a libel case was sent to prison for three months in March 1753. In 1762 his wife Elizabeth died, having given birth to a baby boy in 1760. She had been attended by her close friend, Ann Ford, an accomplished singer and viola da gamba player who had been involved in a scandalous affair wtih the aged Earl of Jersey in 1761. She and Thicknesse married in 1762 and they had four surviving children. At Bath, where the Thicknesses had moved to a house in the fashionable Crescent, Gainsborough painted a famous full-length portrait of Ann Ford, Mrs. Philip Thicknesse (Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinatti) although Thicknesse and the artist quarrelled and subsequently fell out. Thicknesse was also a friend of the artist's brother, the inventor Humphrey Gainsborough. Thicknesse was a travel writer and contributed frequently to The Gentleman's Magazine. He travelled extensively throughout Europe with his large family, writing accounts of their trips, their carriage often exciting much attention with their pet monkey, Jacko, dressed in a red jacket and boots riding postilion. Thicknesse's virulent temper and poisonous pen earned him the nickname 'Dr. Viper'. He died near Boulogne, France in 1792.