Manual Ref* | SUbaSu001 Show 6 images | 616 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Title* |
Gainsborough |
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County | Suffolk | District Council | Babergh | |||||||||||||||||||||
Civil Parish or equivalent | Sudbury | Town/Village* | Sudbury | |||||||||||||||||||||
Road | Market Hill | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Precise Location | At the top end of the Market Hill, in front of the main west entrance into St. Peter's Church. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
OS Grid Ref | TL874413 | Postcode | CO10 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Setting | At the top of the Market Hill, over looking the market. Looking towards Gainsborough's House. | Access | Public | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Commissioned by |
Public subscription; local committee 19 July 1907, national committee May 1909, under patronage of Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyle), chaired by the Marquis of Bristol | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Design & Constrn period |
1910-1912 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of installing |
1913 |
Exact date of unveiling |
10/06/1913 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Work is |
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Owner/Custodian |
Sudbury Town Council | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Listing status |
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Surface Condition |
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Structural Condition |
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Vandalism |
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Overall condition |
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Inscriptions | Gainsborough 1727 - 1788 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Description (physical) |
Gainsborough, his hair tied back with a bow is shown in a long overcoat, open to reveal his waist coat and cravat, as he looks over the market square, towards Gainsborough House, pausing from painting and resting a brush on the palette. Mackennal’s statue presents an idealised, slightly younger, version of Gainsborough’s bust-length Self Portrait of 1787, (when he was sixty) presented to the Royal Academy by his daughter Margaret in 1808. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Description (iconographical) |
The commission began with an appeal by the Mayor of Sudbury in 1907, which two years later had become a national one which by June 1910 had, as reported in the Times, chosen Bertam Mackennal as sculptor. The committee had approved of his design, and the maquette was displayed at the Royal Academy in 1911, the statue the following year. The statue follows the maquette closely, but the base has been simplified and the seated lady is rendered as a bronze plaque, rather than a free-standing figure, which allowed the introduction of a landscape background. The statue presents an idealised, slightly younger, version of Gainsborough’s bust-length Self Portrait of 1787, (when he was sixty) presented to the Royal Academy by his daughter Margaret in 1808. The relief on the back showing a viola and mandolin together with paint brushes,demonstrates Gainsborough's love of music. The relief on the front, showing a woman sitting on a rock under a tree holding a violin, is Sir Bertram Mackennal's version of Gainsborough's Portrait of Mrs Sheridan, now in the Mellon collection in the Washington National Gallery, in 1913 in the collection of the Baron Lionel de Rothschild. She, however, like Gainsborough's other sitters does not hold a musical instrument. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Photographs |
Date taken:
26/1/2008
Date logged: 27/3/2007 |
Photographed by: |
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On Site Inspection |
Date: 25/3/2007 |
Inspected by: |
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Sources and References |
website.ag.nsw.gov.au/Mackennal/ Gainsborough memorial and biography accessed 01/04/2010; Edwards, D., Bertram Mackennal : the fifth Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project, Sydney : Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2007., 56 and 201 Diane Perkins, Gainsborough House Director, personal comment, (11/6/07); Waterhouse, E., Gainsborough, London, 1958 pl. 256 and Cat. 613 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Database |
Date entered: 11/6/2007 |
Data inputter: |