Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

(Sudbury 1727-1788 London)

Portrait of Mr G. Hammond, half-length, in a brown coat, holding a letter,

Footnotes

Provenance
Lewis Corkran, Bombay and thence by descent through
The Corkran family
With Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1912, by whoms heirs offered
Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 23 November 1927, lot 21
With van Diemen and Lillienfeld Galleries, New York, 1929-1933
Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 27 May 1946, lot 21
Private Collection, Paris
Sale, Sotheby's, 22 November 2007, lot 38 (as 'Property of a lady')
Private Collection, Ireland
Private Collection, UK

Exhibited
Paris, Sedelmeyer Galleries, Paris, Twelfth Series of Hundred Paintings, 1913, no. 79
San Diego, San Diego Art Institute, Exhibitions of Paintings by Old Masters Loaned through Courtesy of Van Diemen Galleries, January 1930, cat. no. 17
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Art Museum, Exhibition of 18th century English Painting in Honor of Professor Chauncey B. Tinker, May 1930, no. 31
New York, Anderson Galleries, Old and Modern Masters in the New York Art Market from the Collections of Leading New York Art Dealers, March-April 1931
Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum, Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., May 1931, no. 14
New York, Newhouse Galleries, Van Dyck to Lawrence: Opening Exhibition, January-February 1932, no. 12
San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Loan Exhibition of English Painting of the late Eighteenth Century and Early Nineteenth Century, June-July 1933, no. 15

Literature
A.M. Frankfurter, 'Gainsborough: Notes Toward a New Estimation', in Antiquarian, vol. XVI, January 1931, p. 64, ill
E.K. Waterhouse, 'Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough', Walpole Society, 1953, Vol. XXXIII, p. 53
E.K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London, 1958, p. 72, no. 342
H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough: The portraits, fancy pictures, and copies after Old Masters, New Haven and London, 2019, vol. I, cat. no. 438, p. 436, ill.

Mr G. Hammond was an East India Merchant. In this portrait, which Hugh Belsey dates to circa 1780, he is depicted holding a letter to Lewis Corkran, his agent in Bombay. A reduced copy of this portrait is in the J.B. Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.