Sarah Dupont
c. 1777–79
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
77.2 × 64.5 cm (30 3/8 × 25 3/8 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
105600
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Although Thomas Gainsborough is known best for dazzling and opulent full-length portraits of society figures, the artist’s smaller paintings of his family are notable for their directness and intimacy. The subject of this portrait is the artist’s older sister, who married a carpenter in the siblings’ hometown of Sudbury in Suffolk, England, where Gainsborough established himself as a portrait painter before moving on to the fashionable cities of Bath and London.
About the Artist
Thomas Gainsborough · 1727–1788
Thomas Gainsborough was born on 14 May 1727 in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest of nine children to wool dealer John Gainsborough and his wife Mary. Demonstrating prodigious talent from childhood, he sketched landscapes in the local woods and fields, fostering his lifelong passion for the genre. At age thirteen, he moved to London, where he trained under the French engraver and illustrator Hubert-Fr...