The Blue Boy
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| Artist | Thomas Gainsborough |
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| Year | circa 1770 |
| Type | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 177.8 cm × 112.1 cm (70.0 in × 44.1 in) |
| Location | Huntington Library, San Marino, California |
The Blue Boy (c. 1770) is an oil painting by Thomas Gainsborough. Perhaps Gainsborough's most famous work, it is thought to be a portrait of Jonathan Buttall, the son of a wealthy hardware merchant, although this was never proved. It is a historical costume study as well as a portrait: the youth in his 17th-century apparel is regarded as Gainsborough's homage to Anthony Van Dyck, and in particular is very close to Van Dyck's portrait of Charles II as a boy.
Gainsborough had already painted something on the canvas before beginning The Blue Boy, which he painted over. The painting itself is on a fairly large canvas for a portrait, measuring 48 inches wide by 70 inches tall. The portrait now resides in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
It was often rumored that Gainsborough painted the portrait in response to rival Joshua Reynolds,[1] who had once written:
It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed, that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm, mellow colour, yellow, red, or the green colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support or set off these warm colours; and for this purpose, a small proportion of cold colour will be sufficient. Let this conduct be reversed: let the light be cold, and the surrounding colour warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of Rubens and Titian, to make a picture splendid and harmonious.[1]
The painting was in Jonathan Buttall's possession until he filed for bankruptcy in 1796. It was bought first by the politician John Nesbitt and then, in 1802, by the portrait painter John Hoppner. In about 1809 The Blue Boy entered the collection of the Earl Grosvenor and remained with his descendants until its sale by the second Duke of Westminster to the dealer Joseph Duveen in 1921.
In a move that caused a public outcry in Britain, it was then sold to the American railway pioneer Henry Edwards Huntington for $182,200, a then-record price for any painting. (According to a mention in the New York Times, dated November 11, 1921, the purchase price was $640,000.) Before its departure to California in 1922, The Blue Boy was briefly put on display at the National Gallery where it was seen by 90,000 people; the Gallery's director Charles Holmes was moved to scrawl farewell words on the back of the painting.
[edit] Appearances in popular culture
- Cole Porter's 1922 song "Blue Boy Blues", lamenting the Blue Boy's fate, was composed shortly after the painting was sold to Huntington.
- In the 1929 Laurel and Hardy short Wrong Again, the pair learn that a reward is being offered for The Blue Boy, which they believe to be not a painting but rather a prize horse at the stable where they work. Hilarity ensues as they attempt to deposit the horse at the home of the painting's wealthy owner.
- In the 1988 comedy film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! the Blue Boy (or a facsimile) hangs in the office of the wealthy villain played by Ricardo Montalbán, where it is eventually destroyed by Leslie Nielsen's bumbling protagonist during a botched break-in attempt.
- In Ghostbusters II (1989), Dr. Janosz Poha exclaims to Dana Barrett, with heavy accent, "That's not Gainsborough's Blue Boy, there. He is Vigo!"
- A 1990 Life magazine cover story[1] on the then-recently deceased Jim Henson described a Kermit version of the portrait hanging in the second-floor conference room of the 1928 brownstone that served as Henson's New York City headquarters.
- In Richie Rich (film) (1994), the painting hangs in Richie's bedroom.
- Reginald Barclay's holodeck recreation of Wesley Crusher saw him dressed as the Blue Boy in the third season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Hollow Pursuits."
- In Die Another Day (2002), James Bond manages to slice through the painting with a sword whilst sparring.
- Blue Boy is an album by Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith.
- The Blue Boy is also a painting in Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World.
- In Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007) Gus appears dressed as the Blue Boy in a painting in the end credits.
- In issues #4 and #8 of Darwyn Cooke's relaunch of Will Eisner's acclaimed comic series The Spirit, the central character is referred to as "Gainsborough" multiple times by supporting character Silk Satin as The Spirit's costume is primary blue.
- In an episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, among Lex Luthor's lost art collection is a painting he describes as Gainsborough's Yellow Boy.
- Ward Kimball parodied The Blue Boy in Art Afterpieces as a hep jazz musician, by adding a trumpet, whiskers and sunglasses to the picture.
- In William Bolcom's 2004 opera A Wedding (based on the Robert Altman film also titled A Wedding, with a libretto by Altman and Anthony Weinstein), the character Jules Goddard recalls purchasing the Blue Boy in his Act I aria, "Pollock, de Kooning and Kline."
- In The Mighty Boosh episode "The Power of the Crimp" from season 3, Bob Fossil calls Vince Noir, "My dear, sweet, naive little prince of a Blue Boy."
- In the twenty-fifth episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Blue Boy takes part in a strike of paintings, where "Gainsborough's Blue Boy's brought out the eighteenth-century English portraits, the Flemish School's solid, and the German woodcuts are at a meeting now."
- On a 2001 episode of the gameshow "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" a contestant was asked what item the subject of The Blue Boy was holding for the $500,000 question. The correct answer of course was "a hat". After narrowing down the answers to "a hat" and "a lute", the contestant correctly answered with "a hat" to win the half million dollars.
- In Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place" the "Blue Boy" is featured in the episode "Art Museum Piece" when the star, Alex Russo, needs to get information about the painting and decides to take the Blue Boy out of it and ask him directly.
- Andy Partridge's song "The Art Song (Something Good With Your Life)" contains the couplet "The Blue Boy has cheered right up / He's glowing yellow like a buttercup", along with references to many other famous paintings such as The Laughing Cavalier and The Night Watch.
- Hyacinth Bucket (Keeping Up Appearances) notes the painting in one of the series' episodes.
[edit] References
- Conisbee, Philip. The Ones That Got Away, essay from Saved! 100 Years of the National Art Collection Fund (2003, ed. Richard Verdi). London: Scala
- Conlin, Jonathan (2006). The Nation's Mantelpiece: A history of the National Gallery. London: Pallas Athene
- Tyler, David. Jonathan Buttall in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). Oxford: Oxford University Press
- http://www.gardenofpraise.com/art39.htm
