Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘Lost’ Portrait of Auguste Vestris by Martin Postle

Marie Auguste Vestris ('A stranger at Sparta') by Francesco Bartolozzi, by Benedetto Pastorini, probably after George Dance, etching and acquatint published 2 April 1781 (detail) © National Portrait Gallery, London

Marie Auguste Vestris ('A stranger at Sparta') by Francesco Bartolozzi, by Benedetto Pastorini, probably after George Dance, etching and acquatint published 2 April 1781 (detail) © National Portrait Gallery, London

The subject of this paper is a portrait of the celebrated eighteenth-century dancer, Auguste Vestris, acquired by Tate in 1955, when it was attributed to Gainsborough Dupont, nephew of Thomas Gainsborough. The paper argues that the portrait is in fact by Gainsborough himself and, through a discussion of the context in which it was made, sheds new light on Gainsborough’s close relations with the world of the London stage.

Tate Papers Issue 4 (2005)

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