Gainsborough's 'The Blue Boy' returns to the UK
Thomas Gainsborough - The Blue Boy
"The Blue Boy", one of Thomas Gainsborough's most famous works, is returning to the UK for the first time in 100 years, and will be on display at the National Gallery in London from 25 January to 15 May 2022.
Image: Thomas Gainsborough, "The Blue Boy", 1770. Oil on canvas, 179.4 × 123.8 cm. Huntington Art Museum, San Marino, California.
Haughty and confident, posing against a pro-Romantic landscape, the identity of the young man in the painting is still a matter of debate. Although for decades it was thought to be Jonathan Buttall, the son of one of the painting's first owners, more recent studies suggest that it may be Gainsborough's nephew, Gainsborough Dupont. Whatever the identity of the "Young Blue Boy", it is one of the painter's greatest works and "a masterpiece of British art", in the words of Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London.
The fame of “The Blue Boy” led the American magnate Henry E. Huntington to pay $728,800 for the painting in 1921, one of the highest sums paid for a painting at the time (several sources indicate that this was an absolute record, although it is possible that -depending on the source consulted and always taking inflation into account- at least two works by Raphael had been acquired for a higher price years earlier). The sale of the work and its subsequent departure from the UK provoked a wave of indignation in the country. Now owned by the Huntington Library Art Museum in California, this will be the first time the painting has returned to the UK since its acquisition a century ago.
The exhibition (free admission) will place "The Blue Boy" alongside several works that show Thomas Gainsborough's admiration for Sir Anthony van Dyck, the Flemish painter who worked for decades in England, decisively influencing later British painting, as well as two works by Van Dyck himself. The five works on display are: "George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Lord Francis Villiers" (1635, Royal Collection) and "Lord John Stuart and his brother, Lord Bernard Stuart", (c.1638, National Gallery, London) by Sir Anthony van Dyck; as well as "The Blue Boy" (c.1770, Huntington Library Art Museum); "Elizabeth and Mary Linley" (c.1772, retouched 1785, Dulwich Picture Gallery); and "Mrs Siddons" (1785, National Gallery, London) by Thomas Gainsborough.

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