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9 unusual facts about Thomas Gainsborough


1739 English cricket season

He worked in England between 1732 and 1745, opening a drawing school on the Strand which had Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) among its pupils.

20th Century Man

As the song progresses he criticizes modern art claiming he prefers time-honored masters such as William Shakespeare, Rembrandt van Rijn, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Gainsborough ("You keep all your smart modern painters, I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough").

Bounty jumper

Adam Worth became an international thief, with the theft of Thomas Gainsborough's painting Duchess being his most famous crime.

Dorothy Wedderburn

Between 1993 and 1995, a Turner ("Van Tromp going about to please his Masters, Ships at Sea, getting a good wetting" c.1844), Constable ("A Sketch for View on the Stour, nr Dedham" c.1821/2) and Gainsborough ("Peasants going to Market: Early Morning" c.1770) were sold for a total of £21m.

International museum and library of music

In Room 3, the relationships between Padre Martini and the stand-out personalities of the music world of the time, such as the young Mozart or Johann Christian Bach, who is represented in the famous portrait by Gainsborough, are displayed.

It's worth noting that there are many paintings by famous artists present in the collection, including the portrait of Farinelli by Corrado Giaquinto, the portrait of Johann Christian Bach by Gainsborough, and one of Charles Burney by Joshua Reynolds.

Thomas Lister Parker

He also possessed pictures of the Flemish school and works of James Northcote and Thomas Gainsborough.

Vivienne Rae-Ellis

In 2012 she completed a biography of the wife of the painter Thomas Gainsborough, and she has since commenced a novel set in the whaling industry of the 1800s.

Wilbraham Tollemache, 6th Earl of Dysart

Wilbraham carried out a program of improvements at Ham House, including the creation of the Yellow Satin Bedroom, and was also a patron of Reynolds and Gainsborough.


Art Gallery of South Australia

British portrait painters are well represented in the collection which includes Robert Peake, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Lely and Thomas Gainsborough.

Burkat Shudi

Charles Burney preferred the tone of Shudi's harpsichords to Kirkman’s and his instruments were highly valued; his customers included Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa, Joseph Haydn, Muzio Clementi, the Prince of Wales, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Frideric Handel.

Chazen Museum of Art

European artists represented at this art museum include Joan Miró, Auguste Rodin, Barnaba da Modena, Andrea Vanni, Giorgio Vasari, Hubert Robert, Thomas Gainsborough, Benjamin Williams Leader, Eugène Boudin, and Maximilien Luce.

Cirencester House

The house contains portraits by Lawrence, Gainsborough, Romney, Lely, Reynolds, Hoppner, Kneller and many others, and a set of giant marble columns carrying busts, which are genuine antiques, collected in Italy by Lord Apsley, the son of the third earl, at the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1814.

Edward Francis Finden

The separate engravings he executed included: The Harvest Waggon, after Thomas Gainsborough; As Happy as a King after William Collins; Captain Macheath in Prison, after Gilbert Stuart Newton; The Little Gleaner after Sir William Beechey; The Princess Victoria, after Richard Westall and Othello telling his Exploits to Brabantio and Desdemona, after Douglas Cowper.

Firle Place

The house has an extensive collection of paintings, porcelain and furniture, including works by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Van Dyck, Raphael, Puligo, Zoffany and Teniers.

Foundling Museum

The Foundling Hospital Collection includes works of art by Britain's most prominent eighteenth-century artists: William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Louis-Francois Roubiliac and many others.

Frank Porter Wood

He died on 20 March 1955 in Toronto and his major bequest to the Art Gallery of Ontario included: The Harvest Wagon by Thomas Gainsborough, Daedalus Warning His Son Icarus by Anthony van Dyck, A Portrait of Dr. Joseph Joachim by John Singer Sargent, Portrait of a Gentleman, Isaak Abrahamsz Massa by Frans Hals, Lady with a Lap Dog by Rembrandt van Rijn, and Portrait of Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne by Frans Hals.

Grace Elliott

Thomas Gainsborough painted her portrait in 1778 and this is now on display in the Frick Collection in New York.

Henry Gladwin

Thomas's wife is depicted as one of the daughters in the portrait circa 1754 of the Gravenor family by Thomas Gainsborough "John and Ann Gravenor, with their daughters" now in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conneticut, Paul Mellon Collection.

Ickworth House

Paintings by Velázquez, Titian, Poussin, and Claude Lorraine, as well as an unrivalled series of 18th-century family portraits by artists such as Gainsborough, Reynolds, Vigee-Lebrun, Batoni, Angelica Kauffman, Ramsay, Van Loo, and Hogarth.

Ignatius Sancho

Among his acquaintances were celebrated figures like Thomas Gainsborough, the Shakespearean actor Richard Garrick, violin virtuoso Felice Girdini, the preacher Dr. Dodd (Ellis 1997:29).

John Constable

Among works that particularly inspired him during this period were paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Claude Lorrain, Peter Paul Rubens, Annibale Carracci and Jacob van Ruisdael.

River Stour, Suffolk

The Stour valley has been portrayed as a working river by John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and Paul Nash.

Sudbury Grammar School

Thomas Gainsborough, painter, two years below Robert Andrews, who he painted in his famous Mr and Mrs Andrews (c. 1750)

Taft Museum of Art

The museum's collections include European old master paintings, with works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Thomas Gainsborough, Frans Hals, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Adriaen van Ostade, among others, and 19th-century American paintings, including the well known murals by Robert Duncanson.


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