Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Commissioned by General Sir Robert Sloper KB (1729–1802) of West Woodhay House, Berkshire, in 1787 (in its complete form);

Thence by descent to his granddaughter, Amelia Goddard (1781–1866), wife of Reverend David Williams (1786–1860);

Thence by descent to their daughter, Amelia Williams, Lady Erle, wife of Sir William Erle (1793–1880), by 1878;

Thence by inheritance to her brother, Colonel Williams;

By whom sold to Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, on 11 March 1920 (and cut soon afterwards);

From whom acquired by Arthur Léopold Weisweiller (1877–1941) on 12 July 1922;

Thence by descent within the family;

By whom sold anonymously, London, Sotheby's, 3 April 1996, lot 72;

Where acquired by the present owner.

London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of works by the Old Masters and deceased masters of the British School, Winter 1878, no. 241;

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, November–December 1920, no. 12.

Exhibition of works by the Old Masters and deceased masters of the British School, exh. cat, London 1878, p. 46, no. 241 (where identified as Mrs. William Goddard (posthumous), and her children);

W. Armstrong, Gainsborough and his place in English art, London and New York 1898, p. 196; 1904 ed., p. 268 (where identified as Mrs. William Goddard, and her children);

A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813–1912, London 1913, vol. I, p. 383, no. 241 (where identified as Mrs. William Goddard and Children);

W. Whiteley, Thomas Gainsborough, London 1915, p. 290 (where identified as Mrs. Sloper and her two surviving daughters);

The Illustrated London News, vol. 157, issue 4260, 11 December 1920, p. 972, reproduced in its complete form (where identified as 'Mrs Sloper [...] and her two surviving daughters');

Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., exh. cat., Cincinnati 1931, under no. 19;

M. Woodall, Gainsborough’s Landscape Drawings, London 1939, pp. 74–75 (where identified as Mrs Sloper);

J.B. Whitmore, in Notes and Queries, vol. 192, issues 2 and 8, 25 January – 19 April 1947, pp. 41 and 173 (where identified first as 'Mrs Sloper [...] and her two surviving daughters' and later as 'the mother of these [illegitimate] children, and... two surviving daughters');

E.K. Waterhouse, 'A Preliminary Checklist of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough', in The Walpole Society, vol. XXXIII, Oxford 1953, p. 99 (where identified as Mrs. Sloper);

E.K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London 1958, p. 90, no. 622 (1) (where identified as Mrs. Sloper);

J. Lindsay, Thomas Gainsborough: His Life and Art, London 1981, p. 193 (where identified as Mrs. Sloper);

K. Retford, 'A Death in the Family: Posthumous Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century England', in Art History, vol. 33, no. 1, February 2010, pp. 86, 90–91 and 93, reproduced in its complete form pl. 10 (where identified as The Sloper Family (Mrs Jenny Goddard and her Daughters);

H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies After Old Masters, New Haven and London 2019, vol. I, pp. 9 and 403–4, no. 406 (1), reproduced in colour (where identified as Mrs. Sloper);

S. Sloman, Gainsborough in London, London 2021, pp. 193–96, reproduced in its complete form fig. 134 (where identified as The Sloper Children and their Mother);

A. Ng, 'Fashion, Portraits, and Time', in Gainsborough. The Fashion of Portraiture, exh. cat., New York 2026, pp. 73–74, reproduced in its complete form fig. 35 (where identified as Mrs. Sloper Spiritualized and Two Girls).