Gainsborough
Gainsborough names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Gainsborough THOMAS, an English portrait and landscape painter
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THOMAS, an English portrait and landscape painter; born in Sudbury, Suffolk, England, in 1727. He was sent to London at the age of 14, to study art under Gravelot, Frank Hayman, and in the St. Martin's Lane Academy. Returning to his native county about 1744, he established himself as a portrait painter at Ipswich. He was patronized by Sir Philip Thicknesse, the governor of Landguard Fort. Through the advice of his friend, he removed in 1760 to Bath. Here he won the public by his portrait of Earl Nugent; numerous commissions followed, and in 1761 he began to exhibit with the Society of Artists of Great Britain, a body which he continued to support till 1768, when he became a foundation member of the Royal Academy. In 1774, after a deadly quarrel with Thicknesse, he removed to London, and there prosecuted his art with splendid success, being in portraiture the only worthy rival of Reynolds, and in landscape of Wilson, Gainsphate mining, wagon works, planing is excellently represented in the National Gallery, London, by 14 works, including portraits of "Mrs. Siddons," of "Orpin the Parish Clerk," and of "Ralph Schomberg, M. P.," and "The Market Cart," and "The Watering- Place"; in the National Portrait Gallery, London, by five works; in the Dulwich Gallery by six works, and in the National Gallery of Scotland by the portrait of the "Hon. Mrs. Graham." One of his most celebrated portraits is that of Master Jonathan Buttal, known as "The Blue Boy," in the collection of the Duke of Westminster. He died in London, Aug. 2, 1788. GALAPAGOS (gä-läpä-gōs) Spanish, "tortoises," a group of 13 islands of volcanic origin in the North Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles W. of the coast of Ecuador, to which they belong; area, 2,950 square miles. The most important are Albemarle, 60 miles long by 15 broad, and rising 4,700 feet above the sea; Indefatigable, Chatham, Charles, James, and Narborough. Many of the fauna and flora of the islands are peculiar to them, the most remarkable being a large lizard and the elephant tortoise.
Gainsborough a market town of Lincolnshire
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a market town of Lincolnshire, on the right bank of the Trent, 21 miles above its embouchure in the Humber, and 16 miles by rail N. W. of Lincoln. The parish church, with the exception of a fine old tower, dating from the 12th century, was rebuilt in 1736. The manor house, built by John of Gaunt, now forms part of the corn exchange. The grammar school was founded in 1589. The town manufactures linseed cake and oil, malt and cordage.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 placed "The Blue Boy" in the collection of the Duke of Westminster; within months it had gone. Duveen bought it and sold it to the American railway magnate Henry E. Huntington for a sum reported around £148,000, then a record for any picture, and after a farewell showing at the National Gallery it left England in January 1922 for San Marino, California, where it hangs today. The painter's birthplace in Sudbury, unmentioned in 1921, opened as Gainsborough's House museum in 1961 and reopened much enlarged in 2022. As for the Lincolnshire town, the manor house Collier's says was "built by John of Gaunt" and absorbed into the corn exchange is now dated to the 1460s and attributed to Sir Thomas Burgh; Gainsborough Old Hall stands as a museum, and the linseed-oil and cordage trades have given way to other industry.
Written for this edition, 2026.