Statue of Thomas Gainsborough

This is a bronze sculpture of Thomas Gainsborough, an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his bitter rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British portrait artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy. Thomas Gainsborough holds a palette daubed with paint in this idealised likeness of the great painter. Under the Will of art collector Henry Vaughan, Brock was commissioned to carve a marble statue of Gainsborough (now in the Tate collection) in 1906. After Brock's death, the RA acquired the plaster model from his studio, from which the bronze cast was commissioned.