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Observations about the abandoned portrait beneath Gainsborough’s ‘Blue boy’

03/2025 | 1464 | 167

Pages: 261–265

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related names

Author:

O'Connell, Christina Milton (O'Connell, Christina Milton)

Subjects

artists:

Gainsborough, Thomas

works:

British art / Technical analysis / Scientific analysis / Infrared photography / Portraits / Full-length portraits

Illustrations

Attributed works:

1. Digital X-radiograph of Fig.2, captured through all layers of the painting, including the wooden auxiliary support.

Attributed works:

2. Blue boy (after treatment), by Thomas Gainsborough. c.1770. Oil on canvas, 177.8 by 112.1 cm. (Huntington Library and Art Museum, San Marino).

Attributed works:

3. John Joshua Kirby, by Thomas Gainsborough. c.1754–56. Oil on canvas, 41.9 by 29.2 cm. (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

Attributed works:

4. Infra-red reflectography of Fig.2, showing the preliminary lines of the abandoned portrait, including the contours of the face, coat, and shoulders. A dark layer of paint was applied over the abandoned portrait, slightly obscuring the legibility of the details in IRR.

Attributed works:

5. Detail of Fig.1.

Attributed works:

6. Detail of Fig.1, showing additional details of the abandoned portrait’s face.

Attributed works:

7. Cross-section of Fig.2, taken at the top fold-over edge contains, from bottom to top: the off-white double ground layer; a paint layer from the abandoned portrait’s face; and the dark layer of paint that Gainsborough applied over the abandoned portrait followed by the thinly applied paint of the sky for the Blue boy composition.

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