Sarah Dupont
Thomas Gainsborough·c. 1777–79
Historical Context
Sarah Dupont, painted around 1777-79, was produced during Gainsborough's mature Bath period, when he occupied a singular position in British portrait painting that combined artistic distinction with fashionable celebrity. Bath in the 1770s was the social hub of the English gentry and aristocracy during the 'season,' and Gainsborough had established himself there since 1759 as the portraitist of choice for the distinguished visitors who came for the therapeutic waters and the social pleasures of the Assembly Rooms. His principal rival in London was Joshua Reynolds, whose more classical, allegorizing approach to portraiture drew on Italian Renaissance precedents that Gainsborough largely rejected. Where Reynolds quoted van Dyck and classical sculpture to elevate his sitters above the social moment, Gainsborough favored a more immediate, conversational style in which the sitter seemed to inhabit a specific instant rather than a timeless pose. The Art Institute of Chicago's holding places this work alongside its strong representation of eighteenth-century British portraiture.
Technical Analysis
Gainsborough's signature feathery brushwork creates the illusion of silk with minimal physical paint. Long, fluid strokes define the costume, while the face is modeled with greater precision, creating the characteristic contrast between detailed features and loosely rendered drapery.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the silk dress — Gainsborough renders the sitter's gown with long, fluid brushstrokes that create the illusion of shimmering fabric without laboriously painting each thread.
- ◆Notice the feathery, almost dissolving quality of the background — Gainsborough's characteristic atmospheric treatment makes the sitter appear to emerge from a misty, dreamlike landscape.
- ◆Observe the sitter's complexion — luminous, warm flesh tones achieved through transparent glazes over a warm ground, Gainsborough's signature approach to painting skin.
- ◆Find the powdered hair — rendered with delicate gray-white strokes that capture the powder's dusty quality, the specific fashion detail placing the portrait precisely in the Bath period.
Provenance
Presumably painted for Philip Dupont, husband of the sitter and the artist’s brother-in-law (died 1788), Sudbury; by descent to his grandson Richard Gainsborough Dupont (died 1874), also of Sudbury, by 1856 [Fulcher 1856]; sold with his collection, Wheeler and Westoby, Sudbury, May 29, 1874, no. 127, as “Mrs. Philip Dupont, wife of the above [no. 126]”, to J.H. Chance for 36 gns. [label on the picture’s stretcher, the price given in an annotated copy of the catalogue at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, the buyer in Graves 1918, p. 328; the supposed pendant, no. 126 in the sale and described as “Philip Dupont, the artist’s nephew [sic]” was also acquired by Chance and is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, but see Warner 1996]; J. H. Chance, to at least 1887 [Ipswich 1887]. Probably William Carr (died 1925), Ditchingham Hall, Norfolk [in a letter of August 22, 1993 in curatorial file, his granddaughter, Countess Ferrers, suggested that he acquired it when he enlarged Ditchingham Hall about 1911]. His son, Brigadier William Greenwood Carr, D.S.O., Ditchingham Hall (died 1982), certainly by 1955 [annotated photograph in the Ellis Waterhouse archive, Paul Mellon Center, London]; by descent to his daughter, Annabel Mary, Countess Ferrers. Richard L. Feigen and Co., New York, by 1986; sold to the Art Institute, 1987.
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