Portrait of Samuel Gainsborough 1731

Samuel Gainsborough (1717-1780)

Son of Thomas and Elizabeth Gainsborough by John Theodore Heins (1687-1756)

The Portrait and Artist

• Signed and dated 1731
• Oil on Canvas 30 X 25 (76.2 X 63.5)
• private collection
• portrait sold at Mrs Reymes Hurrell sale, Christie's London, 22 February 1929, lot 31
• the artist, J. T. Heins, was a German emigre based in Norwich who also painted a portrait of Thomas Gainsborough in 1731.
• Heins sometimes used the Germanic form of his name Dietrich. A painter, engraver and painter of miniatures, his name is found in the catalogues of the Society of Artists and The Free Society, from 1768 to 1779; and he is mentioned in Bryans Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.

The Subject: Samuel Gainsborough

• a London Haberdasher on Lawrence Lane
• retired to Colchester, England
• Son of Thomas and Elizabeth Gainsborough
• Baptised 29 December 1717
• Died 26 August 1780

Bibliography

• Belsey 1988 Hugh Belsey, "Gainsborough's Family" Gainsborough House Society, The Five Castles Press, Suffolk pp. 11-13, 52-53, 54-55
• Bensusan-Butt 1985 John Bensusan-Butt, "The Young Gainsborough" in Burlington Magazine, July 1985 pp.459-60