Thomas Gainsborough, RA

Black chalk with stump over pencil on laid paper

27.8 x 38.9 cm; 11 x 15¼ inches

Provenance: Arthur Kay (1861–1939), Edinburgh; Edith Oliver (1894–1972); By descent until sold at Christie’s, London, 11 November 1997, lot 7; David Stokes, London; Private collection, UK, until 2018.

Literature: Hugh Belsey, 'A Second Supplement to John Hayes’s ‘The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough’, no. 1086, Master Drawings, Vol. 46, No. 4, ‘Drawings by Gainsborough’ (Winter, 2008), pp. 427–541.

This drawing probably dates from the mid 1780s. The comparatively free handling of the forms is similar to a group of other drawings of this date (see Belsey, op. cit., nos. 1074 and 1077–92). Arthur Kay, the first recorded owner of this work, owned a group of drawings by Gainsborough, some of which were sold at Christie’s on 23 May 1930, although it has not been possible to precisely identify the present drawing as one of these.