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 $728,800 (£182,200), according to dealer Duveen's bill,[2] 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] 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
