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Gainsborough

By Max Rothschild




"MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR" SERIES


ARTIST.                 AUTHOR.

VELAZQUEZ.              S. L. BENSUSAN.
REYNOLDS.               S. L. BENSUSAN.
TURNER.                 C. LEWIS HIND.
ROMNEY.                 C. LEWIS HIND.
GREUZE.                 ALYS EYRE MACKLIN.
BOTTICELLI.             HENRY B. BINNS.
ROSSETTI.               LUCIEN PISSARRO.
BELLINI.                GEORGE HAY.
FRA ANGELICO.           JAMES MASON.
REMBRANDT.              JOSEF ISRAELS.
LEIGHTON.               A. LYS BALDRY.
RAPHAEL.                PAUL G. KONODY.
HOLMAN HUNT.            MARY E. COLERIDGE.
TITIAN.                 S. L. BENSUSAN.
MILLAIS.                A. LYS BALDRY.
CARLO DOLCI.            GEORGE HAY.
GAINSBOROUGH.           MAX ROTHSCHILD.
TINTORETTO.             S. L. BENSUSAN.
LUINI.                  JAMES MASON.
FRANZ HALS.             EDGCUMBE STALEY.
VAN DYCK.               PERCY M. TURNER.
LEONARDO DA VINCI.      M. W. BROCKWELL.
RUBENS.                 S. L. BENSUSAN.
WHISTLER.               T. MARTIN WOOD.
HOLBEIN.                S. L. BENSUSAN.
BURNE-JONES.            A. LYS BALDRY.
VIGEE LE BRUN.          C. HALDANE MACFALL.
CHARDIN.                PAUL G. KONODY.
FRAGONARD.              C. HALDANE MACFALL.
MEMLINC.                W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE.
CONSTABLE.              C. LEWIS HIND.
RAEBURN.                JAMES L. CAW.
JOHN S. SARGENT.        T. MARTIN WOOD.
LAWRENCE.               S. L. BENSUSAN.
DUeRER.                  H. E. A. FURST.
MILLET.                 PERCY M. TURNER.
WATTEAU.                C. LEWIS HIND.
HOGARTH.                C. LEWIS HIND.
MURILLO.                S. L. BENSUSAN.
WATTS.                  W. LOFTUS HARE.
INGRES.                 A. J. FINBERG.
COROT.                  SIDNEY ALLNUTT.
DELACROIX.              PAUL G. KONODY.

_Others in Preparation._


PLATE I.--MRS. SIDDONS. (Frontispiece)

     This famous portrait of Mrs. Siddons was painted in 1784.
     It is one of the chief ornaments in the National Gallery,
     London. It represents the celebrated actress in her
     twenty-ninth year. The picture was purchased in 1862 from
     a relative of Mrs. Siddons.

[Illustration: PLATE I.--MRS. SIDDONS.]




Gainsborough

BY MAX ROTHSCHILD

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

[Illustration]

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.




CONTENTS


                                                            Page

  I. Painting in England before Gainsborough                  11

 II. Gainsborough's Early Life--Ipswich and Bath              25

III. Gainsborough's Life in London--Last Years and Death      46

 IV. Gainsborough's Works                                     65




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Plate

   I. Mrs. Siddons                                      Frontispiece
        At the National Gallery, London
                                                            Page
  II. Ralph Schomberg, M.D.                                   14
        At the National Gallery, London

 III. Queen Charlotte                                         24
        At the South Kensington Museum

  IV. "The Blue Boy"                                          34
        At Grosvenor House

   V. The Hon. Mrs. Graham                                    40
        At the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

  VI. The Duchess of Devonshire                               50
        In the collection of Earl Spencer, K.G.

 VII. Mrs. Robinson--"Perdita"                                60
        At the Wallace Collection

VIII. Miss Haverfield                                         70
        At the Wallace Collection




[Illustration]

I

PAINTING IN ENGLAND BEFORE GAINSBOROUGH


The British school of painting was, compared with those of the other
nations of Western Europe, the latest to develop. In Italy, Spain,
France, the Netherlands, Germany, and even Scandinavia painting and
sculpture flourished as early as the Gothic Age, and in most of these
countries the Renaissance produced a host of craftsmen whose works
still endure among the most superb creations of artistic genius. It is
now inexact to say that there was no _primitive_ period in British Art;
the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, so resplendent on
the Continent with pictures and statues reflecting the character, the
aspirations, the temperament of the respective peoples that produced
them, produced works of art also in these islands. There are ample
records of pictures having been painted in England, both religious
subjects and portraits, at a very early age, as far back even as the
reign of Henry III.; of such remote productions little has been
preserved, but there are still extant a few specimens, from the
thirteenth century onwards, as well as portraits of Henry VI., Henry
VII., and effigies of princes and earls, which cause us to mourn the
loss of a large number of paintings; they are at times grotesque and so
thoroughly bad as to be a quite negligible quantity as works of art,
though no doubt historically interesting.


PLATE II.--RALPH SCHOMBERG, M.D.

     This canvas can be seen in the National Gallery, and
     represents a member of the family of Field-Marshal Duke
     Schomberg, who was killed in 1690 at the Battle of the
     Boyne. It is painted in the fashion of the time, a full
     figure in the open air, and is a very fine example of
     Gainsborough's work.

[Illustration: PLATE II.--RALPH SCHOMBERG, M.D.]

It may be stated for our purposes that until the reign of Henry VIII.
the art of painting was non-existent in England. This luxurious and
liberal monarch it was who first gave any real and discerning
encouragement to art, and the year 1526 must ever be memorable as the
one in which was laid the foundation-stone of British Art. In that year
the Earl of Arundel returned from a journey on the Continent; he was
accompanied by a young man of powerful build, "with a swarthy sensual
face, a neck like a bull, and an eye unlikely to endure contradiction."
This was Hans Holbein, who was then thirty years of age, and whose fame
had already been spread far and wide by the eloquent praises of
Erasmus. Whether the monarch appreciated the depth and subtlety of the
painter's genius better than did his own fellow-citizens of Basle, or
whether his attitude towards him was prompted by a sense of vanity and
ostentation is a question of little moment; the fact remains that he
succeeded by his favour and a pension of two hundred florins in fixing
the painter at the English court, and thus rendered an incomparable
service to his country's art. With the exception of a few lengthy
excursions abroad, Holbein lived continuously in England for
twenty-eight years, until his death of the plague in 1543.

The art of Holbein, with all his genius, with all his success and
popularity at court, does not seem to have taken root in England. The
soil was not congenial, and when the plant withered no off-shoots
remained behind; he formed no school in this country, had no pupils
capable of carrying on his work, and continuing his tradition. With
his death, the first short chapter in the history of art in Great
Britain closes like a book, and for a time it looks as though the seeds
sown by Henry VIII. were destined never to bear fruit. But one notable
result had been attained; painting had gained a place in popular
estimation, and succeeding sovereigns followed Henry's example in
attracting to England talented artists from over seas. Thus Antonio
Moro came for a brief period to the court of Mary; Lucas de Heere,
Zucchero, and Van Somer to that of Queen Elizabeth. During this reign,
for the first time, distinction is obtained by two artists of British
birth, the miniature painters Hilliard and Oliver, but they again leave
no very important followers (with the exception of the younger Oliver),
and their isolated merit had no share in the formation of a native
school.

With the accession of Charles the First art began to take a much more
important position in the life of the nation. Charles was a man of
considerable taste and refined discernment; no longer content with
attracting artists to his court, he began to collect fine works
purchased in other countries, his example being followed by his brother
Prince Henry, by the Earl of Arundel and others among his courtiers;
thus the works of the great Italians found their way into England. The
walls of the royal palaces blazoned with the handiwork of Raphael and
Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio and Veronese, Titian and Tintoretto; from
the Netherlands came pictures by Rembrandt and Rubens, and the influx
thus started was destined to continue until England became the greatest
artistic store-house in the world.

The greatest artistic event of the reign of Charles I.--the most
far-reaching, indeed, in the whole history of art in this country--was
the coming of Van Dyck in 1632, for to his influence is directly due
the birth and development of our native school of painting culminating
in the golden period of the following century.

Van Dyck was thirty-three years of age when he came to England; his
talent was at its highest point of perfection; he was almost
immediately attached to the court among the royal painters, and his
success was rapid and unequalled. The king and queen and their children
sat to him again and again; there was no courtier or noble lady but
wished her portrait to be painted by the fashionable and fascinating
artist, and the habit of portrait-painting became so firmly established
that neither the revolution, nor the Puritan regime, which followed the
death of Charles I., were able to eradicate it.

Van Dyck's commissions were so numerous that it became impossible for
him to execute the whole of them with his own hand; Van Dyck, as his
master Rubens had done in Antwerp, filled his studio with assistants
and pupils whom he trained, and who frequently painted the more
unimportant portions of his portraits, such as draperies and
background. In this manner a considerable number of men received
tuition of the utmost value, and, though many of them were foreigners,
drawn to London by the reports of successful brothers of the brush, a
school was at last founded which was destined to develop into the
glorious English school of painting of the eighteenth