Decades after being cast off in storage, a portrait that was long thought to only share similarities with work by Thomas Gainsborough has been reattributed to the famed 18th-century portraitist.
The Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG) in England once stated that the portrait bore only “an affinity with Gainsborough” but was “too coarse to be his work.” Now, it has now been placed under his name, 60 years after it was given to the museum, according the Guardian.
The painting, an unsigned portrait of Captain Frederick Cornewall, was given to the RMG in 1960 by the collector Edward Peter Jones. Though it was attributed to Gainsborough at the time, the RMG’s then curator thought the work just shy of Gainsborough-quality.
But last year, Gainsborough expert Hugh Belsey found an early 20th century image of the portrait when it was held by the storied British dealership Agnew’s. Belsey traced to provenance to Jones, but soon lost the thread. Eventually, an acquaintance spotted the portrait in an illustrated catalogue of the National Maritime Museum’s holdings.
After requesting the work be rescued from the depths of museum storage, Belsey confirmed it was a true Gainsborough. The curator at the RMG agreed.
“His request landed on my desk. We got the painting out of storage. Everything stacked up: it had all the visual hallmarks of Gainsborough’s style in this period,” Katherine Gazzard, RMG’s current curator, told the Guardian.
Gazzard called the misattribution a “cautionary tale” and a reminder to be meticulous when attributing works. “But we’re excited rather than embarrassed,” she said of the discovery, which dates to around 1762, when a young Gainsborough was working in Bath, England.
As to why the 1960s curator didn’t believe the portrait to be an authentic Gainsborough, Belsey told the Guardian that the painter was “developing at a very fast pace [at the time] and as he attracted more commissions his style became more assured and his brushstroke freer.”
RMG has begun raising money to have both the painting and its frame restored, a job which is expected to cost around £60,000. Next year, it will be hung in RMG’s Queen’s House.