Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Portrait of Surgeon-General David Middleton (1703-1785), bust-length, tucking his hand into his embroidered waistcoat

Lot Closed

October 22, 03:22 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Estate of Dr. Charles and Anita Winter

Thomas Gainsborough R.A.

Sudbury 1727 - 1788 London

Portrait of Surgeon-General David Middleton (1703-1785), bust-length, tucking his hand into his embroidered waistcoat

oil on canvas, unlined

canvas: 29½ by 24½ in.; 74.9 by 62.2 cm.

framed: 37¼ by 32½ in.; 94.6 by 82.5

By descent from the sitter to James Middleton Paton (b. 1808), Montrose, by 1873;
By descent to Miss Hope H. Paton (d. 1908), by 1885;
John Middleton Paton;
Alexander Lyell;
By descent to Mrs. Hope B. Sutherland;
Her sale, London, Christie's, 18 June 1971, lot 96A, where unsold;
By whom reoffered, London, Christie's, 17 March 1972, lot 11;
There acquired by Douglas;
With the Old Hall Gallery, Rye, England, by May 1972.

W. Armstrong, Gainsborough and his Place in English Art, London and New York 1898, p. 199;
B. Webber, James Orrock R. I. , Painter, Connoisseur, Collector, London 1903, vol. II, reproduced p. 121 (as Benjamin Franklin);
W. Armstrong, Gainsborough and his Place in English Art, London and New York 1904, p. 273;
A.E. Fletcher, Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., London 1904, p. 213;
E.K. Waterhouse, "Preliminary Checklist of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough," Walpole Society, 1948-50, 1953a, p. 75, cat. no. 2 (as "perhaps by Dupont");
J.S. Reis, "A Third Gainsborough Portrait of Johann Christian Bach?," Musical Quarterly, vol. II, 1990, pp. 295-6;
H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures, and Copies after Old Masters, New Haven and London 2019, vol. II, cat. no. 638, pp. 596-7.

This handsome portrait is one of two autograph versions by Gainsborough, one of which is in the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio (inv. no. 1983.504). Until 1877, when the present portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy by the descendant of the sitter, the Cincinnati picture, then in the collection at Lansdowne House, was thought to depict Benjamin Franklin. In 1990, it was alternatively suggested that the sitter was the composer Johann Christian Bach, son of Johann Sebastian Bach, though this argument has since been rejected.¹

The portrait likely dates from the late 1770s, after Gainsborough had left Bath and settled back in London. Though little is known of his upbringing, David Middleton (1703-1785) was Surgeon to the 1st Troop of Horse Guards in 1732 and the following year became the Surgeon-in-Ordinary at St. George's Hospital in London, a position he held until 1764. In the 1740s he lived in Flanders, and from 1748 until the end of his life he was the Surgeon-General to the Army; he died at Kensington Palace at the age of 81.

1. See Reis 1990 and Belsey 2019, p. 596.