Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, to a cloth merchant, Gainsborough was apprenticed to a London silversmith at 13 and trained under the French illustrator Hubert Gravelot. He worked in Ipswich before settling in the fashionable spa town of Bath in 1759, where portrait commissions from wealthy visitors gave him the means to paint landscapes for himself.
In Bath he studied the Van Dyck portraits held in nearby country houses, absorbing a fluid, elegant handling of paint that shaped his own portrait style. In 1768 he became a founding member of the Royal Academy alongside his rival Joshua Reynolds, and moved to London in 1774 as one of the country’s most fashionable portraitists. He died in London in 1788.
Gainsborough paintings on display, museum by museum
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
- George Drummond — Gallery 44 (1779 - 1782)
- Margaret Gainsborough gleaning — Gallery 52
Cleveland Museum of Art
- Portrait of George Pitt, First Baron Rivers — 203A British Painting and Decorative Arts (1769)
- Portrait of Mary Wise — 203B British Painting and Decorative Arts (c. 1774)
- Rocky, Wooded Landscape with a Dell and Weir — 203A British Painting and Decorative Arts (c. 1782–1783)
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
- Elizabeth and Mary Linley — Room 3 (c.1772, retouched 1785)
- Mrs Elizabeth Moody with her sons Samuel and Thomas — Room 10 (c.1779-85)
- Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg — Room 12 (c. 1777–78)
- Samuel Linley — Room 10 (1778)
- Thomas Linley the Elder — Room 10 (c.1770)
- Thomas Linley the younger — Room 10 (c.1772)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
- A forest road — Gallery 5 (1750)
- Heneage Lloyd and his Sister, Lucy — Gallery 3 (1748-1750)
The Louvre
- Conversation dans un parc (2e quart du XVIIIe siècle (1746 - 1748))
- Portrait de Miss Elizabeth Ann Gosset — Salle 713 (3e tiers du XVIIIe siècle (avant 1772))
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Queen Charlotte — 512
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
- John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll, about 1693 - 1770. Soldier — Portrait (On Display) (1767)
- Landscape with a View of a Distant Village — National (On Display) (Late 1740s / early 1750s)
- The Honourable Mrs Graham (1757 - 1792) — National (On Display) (1775 - 1777)
The National Gallery, London
- Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk — Room 34 (1748)
- Dr Ralph Schomberg — Room 34 (About 1770)
- Margaret Gainsborough holding a Theorbo — Room 34 (About 1777)
- Mr and Mrs Andrews — Room 34 (About 1750)
- Mr and Mrs William Hallett ( — Room 34 (1785)
- Mrs Siddons — Room 34 (1785)
- Portrait of Edward Richard Gardiner — Room 34 (About 1760-8)
- Portrait of the Artist — Room 34 (1777)
- Portrait of the Artist with his Wife and Daughter — Room 34 (About 1748)
- The Market Cart — Room 34 (1786)
- The Painter — Room 34 (Probably about 1760-1)
- The Painter — Room 34 (Probably about 1756)
- The Pitminster Boy — Room 34 (1768-9)
- The Watering Place — Room 34 (Before 1777)
National Portrait Gallery, London
- Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis — Room 10 (oil on canvas, feigned oval, 1783)
- Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk — Arundel Castle, Arundel (oil on canvas, 1784-1786)
- David Garrick — Gainsborough's House, Sudbury (oil on canvas, 1770)
- Edward Vernon — Gainsborough's House, Sudbury (oil on canvas, circa 1753)
- Gaetano Appolino Balthasar Vestris (Gaëtan Vestris) — Room 18 (oil on canvas, oval, circa 1780-1781)
- George Colman the Elder — Room 18 (oil on canvas, circa 1777)
- Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst — Room 10 (oil on canvas, feigned oval, circa 1780)
- Johann Christian Bach — Room 18 (oil on canvas, circa 1776)
- John Henderson — Room 18 (oil on canvas, circa 1773-1775)
- Joseph Gibbs — Gainsborough's House, Sudbury (oil on canvas, circa 1755)
- Karl Friedrich Abel — Room 18 (oil on canvas, circa 1765)
- Thomas Gainsborough — Room 18 (oil on canvas, circa 1759)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Master John Heathcote — M-058 (c. 1771/1772)
- Mountain Landscape with Bridge — M-058 (c. 1783/1784)
- Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — M-059 (1785-1787)
- Seashore with Fishermen — M-058 (c. 1781/1782)
- The Hon. Mrs. Thomas Graham — M-058 (c. 1775/1777)
Tate Britain, London
- Giovanna Baccelli — The Exhibition Age 1760-1815 (Room 4) (exhibited 1782)
- Rural Nomads Camping at Sunset — Troubled Glamour 1760-1830 (Room 5) (c.1778–80)
- Sir Henry Bate-Dudley, Bart. — The Exhibition Age 1760-1815 (Room 4) (c.1780)
- The Baillie Family — Troubled Glamour 1760-1830 (Room 5) (c.1784)
- The Rev. John Chafy Playing the Violoncello in a Landscape — Metropolis 1720-1760 (Room 3) (c.1750–2)
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
- Retrato de Sarah Buxton — Sala 24 (hacia 1776 - 1777)
Rooms and display status checked against each museum’s own collection database.
Listen to the commentary in the gallery
This list tells you where to look. In front of the actual painting, CulturAll adds the audio commentary: photograph the work or its label, listen, then ask your questions.
