1778
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Dominant colour
Sarah Dupont is a 1778 oil by Thomas Gainsborough, a Rococo painting work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
This painting shows a woman, Sarah Dupont, sitting in a room. She's dressed in fancy clothes and has a quiet expression. The artist, Thomas Gainsborough, paid close attention to the details of her dress and the room around her, which is interesting because it gives us a glimpse of what life was like back then. To learn more about this style, look up the technique: glazing.
Presumably painted for Philip Dupont, husband of the sitter and the artist’s brother-in-law (died 1788), Sudbury; by descent to his grandson Richard Gainsborough Dupont (died 1874), also of Sudbury, by 1856 [Fulcher 1856]; sold with his collection, Wheeler and Westoby, Sudbury, May 29, 1874, no. 127, as “Mrs. Philip Dupont, wife of the above [no. 126]”, to J.H. Chance for 36 gns. [label on the picture’s stretcher, the price given in an annotated copy of the catalogue at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, the buyer in Graves 1918, p. 328; the supposed pendant, no. 126 in the sale and described as…
Ipswich Fine Art Club, Ipswich, Suffolk, Works by Gainsborough, Constable, and Old Suffolk Artists, 1887, no. 129, as “Mrs. Phillip Dupont, Wife of the Artist’s Nephew [sic]”. Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk, Gainsborough’s House (opening exhibition), 1961, no. 13. London, National Portrait Gallery, “Gainsborough’s Family Album, November 15, 2018-February. 3, 2019, p. 156-157; Princeton University Art Museum, February 23- June 5, 2019.
George Williams Fulcher, Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (London, 1856), p. 206. Walter Armstrong, Gainsborough and his Place in English Art (London, 1898), p. 194. M. H. Spielmann, “ A Note on Thomas Gainsborough and Gainsborough Dupont,” The Volume of the Walpole Society 5 (1915-17), p. 100. Algernon Graves, Art Sales from early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century, vol. 1 (London, 1918), p. 328. J.W. Goodison, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Catalogue of Paintings, vol. 3, British School (Cambridge, 1977), p. 82, under no. 915. Hugh Belsey, Gainsborough’s Family,…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Thomas Gainsborough (; 14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English painter, draughtsman and printmaker who specialised in portrait and landscape painting.
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