Cottage Children ('Young Hobbinol and Ganderetta')
after Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1882 - 1883 (Stourhead Heirlooms Sale)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 732328
Caption
This type of sentimental, imaginary, rustic scene of poor children by Gainsborough and other artists of the 18th century is called a 'fancy picture'. It also shows the influence of the Spanish artist Murillo who Gainsborough had studied and copied in the 1770s. The original painting (now in The Huntington, San Marino, California) was exhibited in April 1788 at The Gallery of British Poets, an exhibition of pictures inspired by poetry, organised by the publisher and printseller Thomas Macklin who paid the high price of £350 for it. Gainsborough had ceased to exhibit publicly in 1784 (following his argument with the Royal Academy) so his appearance at Macklin's gallery was a new departure. The scene is loosely inspired by William Somerville's mock heroic epic poem of a teenage king and queen called Hobbinol, or, The Rural Games, first published in 1740 and lines from it were attached to the picture. However, the pair depicted here are very young and both dressed as girls. One critic who saw the picture in 1789 observed, "That pathetic simplicity which is the most powerful appeal to the feelings, is given with peculiar effect in this performance […] and present a view of domestic innocence.”
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Cottage Children ('Young Hobbinol and Ganderetta'), after Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788), 1883. This is a copy now at The Huntington, San Marino, California of Richard Colt Hoare's original picture which was sold in the Stourhead House Heirlooms Sale, 1883.
Provenance
This copy commissioned in 1883 by Asher Wertheimer (1844 - 1918), to replace the original bought by him in that year; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946
Credit line
Stourhead, The Hoare Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788), artist