RÉSIDENCE # 06/05 (ENG)

John Gainsborough, by Thomas Gainsborough
Gainsborough’s House
Sudbury, UK
gainsborough.org

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Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), John Gainsborough (1683-1748), 1751.
Graphite on paper, 9.4×7.4 cm.
Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury. 1989.094. Purchased with a grant from the Museums Association (Beecroft Bequest) and a donation made through the National Art Collections Fund and Gainsborough’s House Society Development Trust, November 1989.
© Gainsborough’s House.

Text : Mahaut de La Motte-Broöns, Assistant Curator, Gainsborough’s House.

John Gainsborough was born in about 1683, the sixth child, and third son, of Robert Gainsborough (1643-1748) and his first wife Frances Maynard (died 1689). On 6 July 1704, he married Mary, the daughter of Henry Burrough and his wife Mary Clark, at St Andrew’s, Great Cornard. They had nine children, the youngest of whom was the artist, Thomas. The artist’s father worked for the funeral trade as a crape maker, became a weaver and an innkeeper. In 1733, he was made bankrupt and was helped by his brother Thomas’s son, also called John, who bought what he is now Gainsborough’s House for a generous £500 to ensure that the family could continue to live in the house. The artist’s father became postmaster to Sudbury, a position which was taken over by his wife after his death on 29 October 1748. In this small drawing, Gainsborough depicts his father in profile, a feature often found in memorial portraits. On the reverse, a label purportedly written by Gainsborough’s wife Margaret states: ‘My Father Gainsborough’s Picture, Drawn by my Husband three years after his Decease, and is extremely like him’.