Oil painting, The Three Eldest Daughters of George III: Princesses Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Augusta Sophia, and Elizabeth (after Thomas Gainsborough), attributed to Gainsborough Dupont, British School, late 18th century

Acquired from Mr Whitehead on 14 May, 1878.

The V&A acquired The Three Eldest Daughters of George III: Princesses Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Augusta Sophia, and Elizabeth as an oil painting by Thomas Gainsborough from Mr Whitehead on 14 May, 1878. Four days prior to this it had been purchased as Lot 235 in Mr Jonathan Heugh’s [possibly ‘Hugh’] sale at Christie’s on May 10, 1878. Two years before, it was Lot 56 in the Wynn Ellis sale at Christie’s on May 6, 1876; it had been lent by Wynn Ellis to the Royal Academy of Art in 1871, where it was exhibited as No 24 and described as a sketch for the Three Princesses by Gainsborough.

With the exception of Walter Armstrong in the 19th century, most scholars attribute the V&A painting to Thomas Gainsborough’s nephew, Gainsborough Dupont (see for example Armstrong, Walter, Gainsborough and his Place in English Art, London 1898, p.136). Lionel Cust stated that although the painting is supposed to be a sketch from Gainsborough’s own hand, it would seem probable that it was the work of Gainsborough Dupont, who published a mezzotint engraving from the same group in 1793 (cited in Scharf, George, Sir, The royal collection of paintings at Buckingham palace and Windsor castle [180] photogravures, with an introduction and descriptive text by Lionel Cust, Vol II, Windsor Castle, 1906). C.H. Collins Baker alluded to the work but omitted any reference to who might have painted it (see Collins Baker, C.H., Catalogue of the principal pictures in the royal collection at Windsor Castle, London 1937, p.140). E.K. Waterhouse noted that, ‘A small copy of the full picture … probably by Dupont, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum’ (see Waterhouse, E.K., Preliminary Checklist of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, The Walpole Society, vol XXXIII, 1948-1950, p.20). Oliver Millar likewise alluded to ‘the small sketch-like copy, sometimes attributed to Dupont, in the Victoria & Albert Museum’ (see Millar, Oliver, The later Georgian pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London 1969, p.40). The Victoria & Albert Museum re-labelled the painting as ‘attributed to Dupont’ in November 1955.

The V&A work is a small-scale copy of the group portrait The Three Eldest Princesses: Charlotte, Princess Royal, Augusta and Elizabeth by Thomas Gainsborough, dated 1784, in the Royal Collection (RCIN 400206). George IV commissioned the original for the Saloon at Carlton House – which was then undergoing refurbishment - and it was to be exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art in 1784, after it had been hung, briefly, at Buckingham House for inspection by the royal family. Unfortunately, as the Academy failed to comply with Gainsborough’s wishes for hanging it ‘above the line’, so that its subtle effects could be appreciated, the artist withdrew it, along with other works, and never exhibited at the Academy again. The Gainsborough portrait suffered further ignominy when it was cut down early in the reign of Queen Victoria by an ‘inspector of palaces’ named Saunders, so that it could fit into a space above a doorway. The original design of the full-length portrait was recorded by Dupont in an engraving, dated 1793.

The nature of the V&A painting is unclear. As Hugh Belsey has observed, Dupont made many small-scale duplicates of his uncle’s work (see Belsey, Hugh, Gainsborough at Gainsborough’s House, 2002, p.121; and Belsey, Hugh, ‘Gainsborough Dupont’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004, online edition). It may have been painted in order for Dupont to practise his uncle’s style of painting or as a means of keeping a record of the composition perhaps to show to prospective patrons. Additionally, the painting may form part of the preparation for a print which Dupont engraved in 1793 after Gainsborough’s The Three Eldest Princesses. However, the fine detail visible in Gainsborough’s original, such as the pearls dressing the princesses’ hair and gowns and the buttons on the chairback, is not replicated in this painting, but is in Dupont’s engraving, suggesting that Dupont’s version was not intended as a template for the print.

Gainsborough’s painting of the three princesses was exhibited at his own residence, Schomberg House, in the summer of 1784 and again in 1786, when it was stated in the Morning Herald that it would remain in Gainsborough’s hands until the Prince of Wales had completed the Saloon in Carlton House in which he intended to hang it (see Millar, 1969, p.40). It is reasonable therefore, to date Dupont’s painted version to this period, before the Saloon was completed.

Gainsborough Dupont was a painter and mezzotint engraver. He was the nephew of Thomas Gainsborough, to whom he was apprenticed in Bath, and worked as his sole studio assistant in London. He made mezzotints and small-scale copies after Gainsborough’s paintings, even after the latter’s death in 1788, and the similarity of his style with that of his uncle’s has caused problems of attribution. He worked in a more personal style after Gainsborough’s death, exhibiting works at the Royal Academy of Art.

This oil painting is attributed to Gainsborough Dupont and is a small-scale copy of The Three Eldest Princesses: Charlotte, Princess Royal, Augusta and Elizabeth, by Thomas Gainsborough, dated 1784, in the Royal Collection (RCIN 400206). Dupont was the nephew of Gainsborough and worked as his apprentice and, later in life, his studio assistant. He produced many reduced versions of his uncle’s work possibly to practise Gainsborough’s style, as a means of recording the range of Gainsborough’s work for clients or to make future prints from them.

136-1878