Portrait of George Brydges Rodney, 1st Lord Rodney (1719-1792), Admiral of the White

Thomas Gainsborough, RA (1727-1788)

Oil on canvas

24 x 15 ½ inches; 71 x 40 cm

Provenance:

The artist;
The artist’s nephew, Gainsborough Dupont (c.1755 – 1797);
His sale Schomberg House 10th April 1797, as Thomas Gainsborough, “First Sketch for Lord Rodney. In colours” (no.71), bt Lord Ducie (1739 – 1808);
His son Thomas 1st Earl of Ducie (1776 – 1840) Tortworth, Dorset;
His son Henry George Reynolds Francis Earl of Ducie (1802 – 1853);
His posthumous sale, Searle’s at Tortworth Court 7th – 11th November 1853 (fourth day lot 617) as ‘Gainsborough’;
Collection Camille Groult, Paris;
Private Collection, Paris;
Private Collection, England.

Literature:

To be included in Hugh Belsey’s forthcoming catalogue raisonée of Gainsborough’s portraits.

Inscriptions:

Inscribed l.r; ‘April 12th 1782’ [the date of the Battle of the Saints, or Saintes]
Old label verso …ortrait of /[Admira]l Lord R[odney]/ by Gainsborou[gh]/ is the f[?irst…]

When Gainsborough was commissioned c.1783 by The Hon Thomas Harley to paint the portrait of Admiral Lord Rodney, victor of The Battle of the Saints, the commission was to paint a family member (Lord Rodney’s son George had married Harley’s middle daughter Anne in 1781) who was also a national hero, thanks to his famous victories over the French during the American War of Independence. This may explain why the artist, unusually, made such exact preparation in the form of the present highly finished oil sketch. Aside from the pentiments around the outstretched hand, the present picture closely predicts the final canvas (now Earl of Rosebery Collection, Dalmeny); but it appears that late on his career, Gainsborough used these small but fully worked up studies as a means of exploring more complicated full-length compositions.

The present sketch is not unique in Gainsborough’s oeuvre. There is a sketch of similar size (Beit Collection) for the portrait of Giovanna Baccelli (Tate Gallery) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1782, and there are almost certainly others, such as that relating to the full-length of Queen Charlotte in the Royal Collection. The latter may be that seen by Ronald Sutherland Gower, who, in his 1903 book ‘Thomas Gainsborough’, wrote: ‘it was Gainsborough’s custom to make a preliminary sketch, sometimes in oil, sometimes in ‘Grisaille’, sometimes in colour, before commencing the life size painting’.

At Gainsborough Dupont’s sale in 1797 the “First Sketch for Lord Rodney. In colours” (no.71) was bought by Lord Ducie, one of Rodney’s commanders at the Battle of the Saints, for £2 12s 6d. Ducie presumably hung the sketch in the Breakfast Room at Tortworth Court, since it is listed hanging there, and as by Gainsborough, at his grandson’s posthumous sale in 1853.