David H. Solkin Boeken

. Tate Publishing Ltd, bright clean copy, no markings, Professional booksellers since 1981

Despite this famous protestation in a letter to his friend William Jackson, Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) was clearly prepared to make an exception when it came to making portraits of his own family and himself. This book features over 50 portraits of himself, his wife, his daughters, other close relatives and his beloved dogs, Tristram and Fox. Spanning more than four decades, Gainsborough's family portraits chart the period from the mid-1740s, when he plied his trade in his native Suffolk, to his most successful latter years at his luxuriously appointed studio in London's West End. Alongside this story of a provincial 18th-century artist's rise to fame and fortune runs a more private narrative, about the role of portraiture in the promotion of family values, at a time when these were assuming a recognizably modern form

Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, the emergence of a new wave of British painters, led by David Wilkie, transformed London's art scene. These artists focused on everyday life, bridging the Age of Revolution with contemporary culture. Their work highlighted the intertwining of common people with historical events, blurred the lines between rural and urban life, and reflected a shift towards a more dynamic present, challenging traditional norms and patterns of the past.