Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Thomas Humphrey Ward (1845–1926);

From whom acquired by Agnews, London, in 1913;

Whence acquired by Leggatt, London, in 1913;

With Arthur Ruck, London, by 1920;

Sir Albert James Bennett, 1st Baronet (1872–1945), Kirklington Hall, Nottinghamshire;

His sale, New York, American Art Association, 19 November 1969, lot 6, for $6,000, to S. Falcke for J.W. Loring;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 19 November 1969, lot 36, for £650, to Rees Davies;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 19 November 1976, lot 160, for £4,800;

Private collection, Sweden.

E. Waterhouse, 'Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough', in Walpole Society, vol. 33, 1948–50, p. 88;

E. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London 1958, p. 85, no. 557 (as dated to Gainsborough's London period);

H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough, New Haven and London 2019, vol. 2, pp. 691–92, no. 741, reproduced (as c. 1778).

Born in Scotland, Sir John Pringle was a significant medical professional in eighteenth-century Britain and has been called the 'father of military medicine'. Having trained in Amsterdam, Leiden and Paris, he was later appointed Joint Professor of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University in 1734. He later joined as a physician to the British Army, and became the personal physician to Prince William, Duke of Cumberland (1721–1765). During this period he published several books, including the influential Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp and Garrison which earnt the Scotsman a place in the history of medicine in Britain. The respect he commanded among the scientific and medical communities brought him several fellowships and honours, which eventually led to his appointment as Physician to the Queen's Household in 1761 and later Physician-in-ordinary to Queen Charlotte and later to King George III. He was made a baronet in 1766 and after his death in 1782 he was buried in St James's Piccadilly. A monument to Pringle, executed by the sculptor Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823), is in Westminster Abbey.

Hugh Belsey dates this portrait to about 1778, although Waterhouse has suggested the painting was completed in the same period as Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of the sitter undertaken in 1774.¹

¹ Oil on canvas, 76.7 x 63.7 cm.; https://prints.royalsociety.org/products/portrait-of-john-pringle-1707-1782-rs-9682