Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Commissioned by General Sir Robert Sloper KB (1729–1802) of West Woodhay House, Berkshire, in 1787 (in its complete form);

Thence by descent to his granddaughter, Amelia Goddard (1781–1866), wife of Reverend David Williams (1786–1860);

Thence by descent to their daughter, Amelia Williams, Lady Erle, wife of Sir William Erle (1793–1880), by 1878;

Thence by inheritance to her brother, Colonel Williams;

By whom sold to Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, on 11 March 1920 (and cut soon afterwards);

Transported to New York by Colin Agnew (1882–1975), by 1926;

From whom acquired by Newhouse Galleries, New York, on 3 July 1947;

From whom acquired by Kay Kimbell (1886–1964), Fort Worth, Texas;

By whom donated to the Kimbell Art Foundation, Fort Worth, Texas, by 1944 (inv. no. ACK44.1);

From where de-accessioned in 1983;

With Newhouse Galleries, New York, by 1985;

Thereafter acquired by a private collector;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

Exhibition of works by the Old Masters and deceased masters of the British School, exh. cat, London 1878, p. 46, no. 241 (where identified as Mrs. William Goddard (posthumous), and her children);

W. Armstrong, Gainsborough and his place in English art, London and New York 1898, p. 196; 1904 ed., p. 268 (where identified as Mrs. William Goddard, and her children);

A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813–1912, London 1913, vol. I, p. 383, no. 241 (where identified as Mrs. William Goddard and Children);

W. Whiteley, Thomas Gainsborough, London 1915, p. 290 (where identified as 'Mrs Sloper and her two surviving daughters');

The Illustrated London News, vol. 157, issue 4260, 11 December 1920, p. 972, reproduced in its complete form (where identified as 'Mrs Sloper and her two surviving daughters');

W.R. Valentiner and J. Hope-Johnstone (eds), Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of English Paintings, exh. cat., Detroit 1926, p. 23, no. 8 (where identified as Portrait of the two children of Mrs. Goddard);

Gainsborough to Grant: 18^th, 19^th and 20^th Century Pictures, exh. cat., London 1934, p. 11, no. 16 (where identified as 'the daughters of General Sir Robert Sloper');

'Notable works of art now on the market', in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 65, no. 381, advertisement supplement, December 1934, p. ii, reproduced pl. VII (where identified as 'the daughters of General Sloper');

J.B. Whitmore, in Notes and Queries, vol. 192, issues 2 and 8, 25 January – 19 April 1947, pp. 41 and 173 (where identified first as 'Mrs Sloper... and her two surviving daughters' and later as 'the mother of these [illegitimate] children, and... two surviving daughters');

E.K. Waterhouse, 'A Preliminary Checklist of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough', in The Walpole Society, vol. XXXIII, Oxford 1953, p. 99 (where identified as the Misses Sloper);

Exhibition of twenty-one paintings from the Kimbell Art Foundation, exh. cat., Fort Worth 1953, n.p., no. 4, reproduced (where identified as The Goddard Sisters – Anne and Margaret);

E.K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London 1958, p. 90, no. 622 (2) (where identified as The Misses Sloper);

J. Lindsay, Thomas Gainsborough: His Life and Art, London 1981, p. 193 (where identified as 'the two surviving daughters of Mrs Sloper');

K. Retford, 'A Death in the Family: Posthumous Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century England', in Art History, vol. 33, no. 1, February 2010, pp. 86, 90–91 and 93, reproduced in its complete form pl. 10 (where identified as The Sloper Family (Mrs Jenny Goddard and her Daughters));

H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies After Old Masters, New Haven and London 2019, vol. I, pp. 9 and 403–4, no. 406 (2), reproduced in colour (where identified as Maria and Amelia Goddard);

S. Sloman, Gainsborough in London, London 2021, pp. 193–96, reproduced in its complete form fig. 134 (where identified as The Sloper Children and their Mother).

London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of works by the Old Masters and deceased masters of the British School, Winter 1878, no. 241;

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1920, no. 12;

Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, The Second Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: British Paintings of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, 18–31 January 1926, no. 8;

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Gainsborough to Grant: 18th, 19th and 20th Century Pictures, November–December 1934, no. 16;

Fort Worth, Fort Worth Art Association, Exhibition of twenty-one paintings from the Kimbell Art Foundation, 3–26 March 1953, no. 4.