Designed and (according to Hayes) etched by Thomas Gainsborough. From the second published edition of this soft ground etching with aquatint, with J. Boydell’s 1797 publication line. As published in an edition of only 75 impressions in 1971, immediately before the plate entered the permanent collection of the Tate Gallery, London.
Thomas Gainsborough’s preparatory drawing for this original print was executed in black and coloured chalks on grey prepared paper. It is now in the collection of the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester.
(For further details regarding the printing of Gainsborough's plates for this edition see the
extended biography page for Thomas Gainsborough).
(The authorship of this work is currently under review by Conal Shields, curator of the Thomson Collection, and Hugh Belsey, former Curator of Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury and currently Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art charged with the task of writing the definitive catalogue of portraits by Thomas Gainsborough.)
Printed in warm-toned black ink on hand-made J. Barcham Green’s ‘Penshurst’ rag paper, with full margins and deckle edge. Excellent condition.
