Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Philip Thicknesse (1719-1792), Writer and eccentric

1757
Miniature by Nathaniel Hone, see NPG 4192.

c.1763
Drawing by William Hoare, three-quarter length standing. British Museum (1894.4.17.9; illus. William Hoare of Bath, Bath, 1990, no.25). A record by Hoare of his now untraced painting; there is a similar drawing by him of his painting of the third Mrs Thicknesse (Ann Ford, also painted by Gainsborough).

1790
Engraving by James Gillray, bust-length oval, looking sour (illus. Gainsborough 2000, p 119; front. to Adair’s Curious Facts not contained in the Memoirs of Philip Thicknesse; M. D. George, British Museum, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires, VI, 7722). A similar head appears in Gillray’s satire of Thicknesse, Birth of Minerva 1790 (M. D. George, British Museum, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires, VI, 7721).

Silhouette by S. W. Fores, bust length (front. to Thicknesse, Memoirs, III, 1791).

Thicknesse also alleged that in 1774 Gainsborough began a whole-length potrait of him with a Newfoundland dog at his feet, in exchange for the gift of Mrs Thicknesse’s viola da gamba; it was never finished and Gainsborough returned the viola da gamba (G. W. Fulcher, Life of Thomas Gainsborough, 1856, pp 91-97; P. Gosse, Dr Viper, 1951, pp 251-56). W. T. Whitley, Thomas Gainsborough, 1915, pp 99-101, and most subsequent writers have treated the episode as imaginary.

Doubtful Portraits
Painting by Francis Hayman, whole-length reclining in a landscape, Art Museum, St Louis, Mo. (E. K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, 1958, no.659, pl.12 as Gainsborough; illus. Hayman 1987, pp 41, 174, no.53).



This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.