Name: THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. (SUDBURY, SUFFOLK 1727-1788 LONDON)
Brand: A study of a donkey with panniers and a slight sketch of a figure
Price: 4200.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. (SUDBURY, SUFFOLK 1727-1788 LONDON)
A study of a donkey with panniers and a slight sketch of a figure
stamped 'T Gainsborough' (lower centre) and stamped 'T Gainsborough' and 'Gainsborough' (upper centre) and indistinctly inscribed 'Very....' (along the lower edge)
pencil on paper with a fragmentary coronet watermark
5³⁄₄ x 7¹⁄₄ in. (14.7 x 18.5 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 5 March 1974, lot 49 (130 gns to Hope).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, Lonodn, 5 November 1974, lot 40 (55 gns to Boyce).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 18 November 1976, lot 193.

J. Hayes, 'Gainsborough Drawings: A Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné', Master Drawings, XXI, no. 4, 1983, p. 391, no. 985.
S. Sloman, 'The Holloway Gainsborough: its subject re-examined’, Gainsborough’s House Review, 1997/98, pp. 50-51, fig. 3.

London, Martyn Gregory, British Watercolours and Drawings 1750-1900, cat. 95, May 2016, no. 38.

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Lot Essay

The present drawing can be linked to the period when Gainsborough was in Bath, between 1758-1774. Donkeys and ponies with panniers were used to carry heavy loads around the hilly city. The stamps on the drawing were likely to have been added by Gainsborough himself. The sheet was probably to hand in his studio, long after it was drawn, and used to try out these two different stamps.