Provenance

Arthur Francis Basset

Basset, A. F.

British, 1873 - 1950

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Shown from the knees up, a woman sits looking off into the distance in front of a deep, shadowy landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right, but she turns her oval face to the left to gaze off with brown eyes. Her upper lip is thin, and her lower lip is fuller. A cloud of ash-brown curls frames her face, and long locks fall over her shoulders. Her wide-brimmed black hat is set at a steep angle to our left. The hat has a white feather lying along the front edge and a pearl hanging from the top front of the brim. Her butter-yellow gown has translucent white ruffles along the low, scooped neckline and a strand of pearls tied at in a bow at the front of the chest. The puffy sleeves come just past the elbows and are similarly lined with ruffles and encircled with pearls. The overskirt drapes over a topaz-blue underskirt. The woman holds a feather in the hand resting in her lap. Her left elbow, to our right, is propped on a stone and that hand holds a gold-colored scarf up by her face. Deeply shaded trees and a murky blue sky fill the background. The portrait is loosely painted in the clothing and background.
Thomas Gainsborough, Frances Susanna, Lady de Dunstanville, c. 1786, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2014.79.706

Frances Susanna, Lady de Dunstanville

Thomas Gainsborough · c. 1786 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.706

This painting is a portrait of a man standing, seen from the knees up, his torso and head slightly turned to the left. The man has pale skin and gray hair styled back from his face and forming curls around his ears, and he has a sharp nose, thick gray eyebrows, and pink lips set in a neutral expression. He wears a dark blue coat with gold buttons, a pale-yellow waistcoat, and a frilly white cravat at his neck, with more white frills at his cuffs. His trousers are tan. His left arm is bent, resting on a tall rock formation on the right. His left hand is gloved and holds the other yellow glove. His bare right hand holds a thin brown cane. The background features loose leaf shapes in warm autumnal colors, with the gray-brown trunk of a tree visible in the top left and glimpses of a purple and gray sky on the left side. The area behind his head is brown.
Thomas Gainsborough, Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville, c. 1786, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2014.79.705

Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville

Thomas Gainsborough · c. 1786 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.705