Drawing for Book VII, chapter 14 of Tom Jones, by Gravelot
Gainsborough’s House
Sudbury, UK
gainsborough.org
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Hubert-François Gravelot (1699-1773), Tom Jones,
Book VII, chapter 14 from the 1750 French Edition
Drawing for Book VII, chapter 14 of Tom Jones
Circa 1749
Graphite on paper
Purchased with an anonymous donation given through the National Art Collections Fund
and the Gainsborough’s House Society Development Trust, July 2001
2001.094 © Gainsborough’s House
Text : Mahaut de La Motte-Broöns, Assistant Curator, Gainsborough’s House.
Born in France, Hubert-François Bourguignon, known as “Gravelot” (1699–1773), studied under the French painters François Boucher and Jean Restout the Younger. In 1732, he was lured to London by the demand for French artists. He met Gainsborough either in his first studio in Covent Garden or in William Hogarth’s Saint Martin’s Lane Academy, opened in 1735, where Gravelot taught drawing. Gravelot made fashionable the idea that a book should not only be interesting to read but also pleasing to look at. His vignettes, small-sized illustrations, helped spread Rococo taste in England. His career coincided with the rise of the sentimental novel such as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, which attracted a large readership. The Swiss-born miniaturist Jean-André Rouquet RA said of his influence: “Mr. Gravelot (…) greatly contributed to diffuse a taste of elegance among the English artists. (…) From him they learn the importance of design” (The present state of the arts in England, 1755). After the English defeat at Fontenoy in 1745, Frenchmen were no longer welcome in London, so Gravelot returned to Paris. His work remained so popular in England that he was asked for illustrations even twenty years after his departure. His opinion was valued to the extent that he could recommend his former pupils, Thomas Major, Charles Grignion and Samuel Wale, to English publishers. Gravelot illustrated the first French edition of Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones (1749). He follows exactly Fielding’s description of the scene where Tom goes in prison to take revenge. In the previous chapter, Tom was attacked by one of his foes, Northerton, who is then sent to prison. Tom, still bleeding from the fight, sword in hand, comes in the middle of the night to kill him. His terrible appearance frightens the warden, a superstitious man who thinks Tom is a ghost. As a result, the warden faints. Gravelot gave a sense of depth to the drawing thanks to the perspective lines converging to the compass point on the left.
