Thomas Gainsborough

This is the last of Gainsborough's self-portraits, which he produced throughout his career. In almost all of these, he presents himself as a gentleman rather than as an artist at work. Correspondence and anecdotes suggest a fraught social situation for Gainsborough and his wife. He disparaged his "gentlemen" clients as good only for "their purse," while his wife, of illegitimate noble birth, was said to have referred to herself as a "prince's daughter." Gainsborough described this portrait as a "sketch" meant for his friend Carl Friedrich Abel, who died before he could deliver it. In June 1788, weeks before Gainsborough's death, he asserted that no posthumous "plaster cast, models or likenesses" be taken of him. However, he allowed for an engraving to be made after this portrait, which offers both a likeness of the artist and exemplifies his art in the deft, loose brushwork that became his signature.