Comparable portraits of that size have exceeded £1m, with the much larger Portrait of Miss Read, Later Mrs William Villebois, selling for £6.5m in 2011.īelsey is a former director of Gainsborough’s House, the museum and art gallery at the artist’s birthplace in Sudbury, Suffolk, where he helped to build up one of the world’s largest collections of the artist’s work. The £2,500 sale price pales against the picture’s true value. “It is so rare to find a picture that’s totally unknown.” “This is a really exciting addition to his work,” he said. Hugh Belsey, a world authority on Gainsborough, told the Observer that layers of accumulated dirt, discoloured varnishes and mismatched overpaint had concealed the master’s hand and that the picture’s conservation has now revealed the sensitivity of Gainsborough’s brushstrokes and the brilliance of his draughtsmanship.
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