A significant private collection goes public for the first time. Gainsborough’s House is delighted to announce an exhibition of a private collection that will be shown in public for the first time. With major paintings from the golden age of British painting it shares with a new audience works by Gainsborough, Constable, Turner and Lawrence. Thomas Gainsborough, an artist who was important in building the British school of painting is featured at his very best in paint and pencil, and it is particularly relevant that the exhibition is to be held at Gainsborough’s House. It is also significant that the collection is being lent by one of Gainsborough’s House’s leading benefactors to the project to make the House a National Centre for Thomas Gainsborough.
Highlights include: Thomas Gainsborough, Wooded Landscape with Figures, Cottage and a Pool, John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, J M W Turner, Bolton Abbey and Sir Thomas Lawrence, Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire.
Image: John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, Oil on canvas
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) was born in Sudbury and baptised at the Independent Meeting-House in Friars Street on 14 May 1727, the fifth son and ninth child of John and Mary Gainsborough. In 1958, Gainsborough’s House Society was formed to purchase the house and establish it as a centre for Thomas Gainsborough. The Museum opened to the public in 1961 and has remained open for over 50 years. The beautiful historic garden at the heart of Gainsborough’s House is maintained by a devoted body of volunteers, who garden exclusively with plants that were available in Gainsborough’s lifetime.
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