Early Thomas Gainsborough painting to be offered for auction
The auction takes place towards the end of the month
A chalk drawing by the British artist Thomas Gainsborough, dating from 1748 when he was around 20 years old, is to be sold at auction.
Gainsborough (1727-88), who was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, had given the artwork to his friend Goodenough Earle, a landowner who inherited the Barton Grange estate near Taunton, Somerset.
The 36.5cm by 51cm drawing, which depicts a Suffolk coastal landscape with donkeys and pigs, was the earliest of a group of 14 drawings given to Earle.
It is to be offered for auction at Cheffins Fine Art Auctioneers in Cambridge with a pre-sale estimate of £30,000 to £50,000.
The drawings, which were sold in 1913, are scattered through public and private collections worldwide.
The picture that is going to auction was bought by the current owner’s grandfather in 1944 and has not been on the open market since then, remaining in a private collection in Norfolk.
Art historian Hugh Belsey MBE said the drawing was made when Gainsborough was about 20 years old and “even at this early age, it shows the artist’s extraordinary capabilities as a draughtsman”.
Patricia Cross, head of Old Master and 18th and 19th Century European art at Cheffins, says: “This is a significant drawing which provides a remarkable insight into Gainsborough’s extraordinary skill in the early part of his career, a point when many of his studies were concentrated on the fields and woodland around Sudbury.
“As this is the most ambitious of the early large-scale works of the artist, we expect it to be of interest for private collectors and institutions alike.”
The drawing will be offered as part of the Cheffins Fine Sale on June 24.