Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

By descent to the sitter’s eldest daughter, Lady Henrietta, Marchioness of Lothian (1762–1805), wife of William Kerr, 6th Marquess of Lothian;

Thence by descent to Philip Henry Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian (1882–1940), Newbattle Abbey, Dalkeith, Midlothian;

By whom posthumously sold, London, Christie's, 19 October 1951, lot 32 (as attributed to Thomas Gainsborough), for 140 guineas to Smith;

With Newhouse Galleries, New York;

From whom acquired by the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, in 1952 (inv. no. 52.9.69);

Whence sold ('The Property of the North Carolina Museum of Art'), London, Christie's, 16 November 1990, lot 10;

With Colnaghi, London;

With Philip Mould & Company, London;

From whom acquired by William W. Winspear (1933–2007), Dallas;

Thence by descent to his son;

From whom acquired by the previous owner in 2013;

Acquired by the present owner in 2018.

Norfolk, Norfolk Society of Fine Arts, November 1963;

Twickenham, Marble Hill House, on loan, May 2003.

N. Bell, Thomas Gainsborough: a record of his life and works, London 1897, p. 102;

E.K. Waterhouse, ‘Preliminary checklist of portraits by Thomas Gainsborough’, in The Walpole Society, vol. XXXIII, 1953, p. 13 (as ‘an early half-length copy’);

W.R. Valentiner, 'The Raleigh Museum's First 220 Paintings: Notes on the Collection', in Art News, vol. 55, no. 2, April 1956, p. 46, reproduced;

W.R. Valentiner, North Carolina Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings, Raleigh 1956, pp. 55–56, no. 80, reproduced;

C.W. Stanford, North Carolina Museum of Art: Selections from British and American Painting and Sculpture, Raleigh 1967, pp. 16–17, no. 7, reproduced;

W.R. Valentiner, North Carolina Museum of Art: British Paintings to 1900, Raleigh 1969, pp. 14–15, no. 71, reproduced;

H. Belsey, 'A Gainsborough Sitter Identified: John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire', in Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 45, 2010, p. 214, n. 15;

H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies after Old Masters, New Haven and London 2019, pp. 121 and 124, no. 121, reproduced in colour (as current whereabouts unknown).

Painted with characteristically loose, energetic brushstrokes, this elegant portrait of John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, in his peer’s robes is a mature work by Thomas Gainsborough, dated by Hugh Belsey to circa 1784. It was likely executed following the completion of a full-length portrait of the Earl, commissioned in 1782 and completed by 1784, which remains at the sitter’s family seat, Blickling Hall, Norfolk,¹ and may have been intended to hang in Buckinghamshire’s London residence. The sitter’s pose is closely replicated, though the gold embroidery of his blue coat is not included and the elaborate patterning of his waistcoat is reduced. The present work remained in the sitter’s family for almost two centuries before entering the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, where it remained until it was deaccessioned in 1990 (see Provenance).

John Hobart was born at Greenwich in 1723, the eldest surviving son of the 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire. Educated at Westminster School and Christ’s College, Cambridge, he entered Parliament in 1747 as a Whig member for Norwich. Appointed Comptroller of the Household to George II in 1755 and sworn to the Privy Council the following year, he succeeded to the earldom in 1756. Buckinghamshire served as British ambassador to Russia between 1762 and 1765, where he was charged with negotiating a new Anglo-Russian treaty. After a period out of office, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1776, governing during a turbulent period marked by the American War of Independence, the growth of the Volunteer movement, and mounting demands for Irish legislative and commercial reform. Though his administration was challenged by political instability and pressure from Westminster, he remained an important figure in British and Irish public life. He died at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, in 1793.

A third portrait of the Earl by Gainsborough, in which he is depicted bust-length within a fictive oval, was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, in 2024 for $304,800 from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.²

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_the_Earl_of_Buckinghamshire#/media/File:Thomas_Gainsborough_(1727-1788)_-_John_Hobart_(1723%E2%80%931793),_2nd_Earl_of_Buckinghamshire_-_355541_-_National_Trust.jpg

² https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/master-paintings-sculpture-part-i/portrait-of-john-hobart-1723-1793-2nd-earl-of