Thomas Gainsborough as an Ipswich Musician, a Collector of Prints and a Caricaturist

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH moved to Ipswich in about 1752 after a four-year sojourn in his native Sudbury. Recent research has shown that he visited Bath in 1758 before moving there permanently with his young family the following year. Judging from the number of paintings that can be dated to the six years he worked in Ipswich, it was a period of great activity. Unfortunately there is little documentary material to support the pictorial evidence and many of his early head-and-shoulder portraits, though distinctive likenesses, are repetitive in composition. With the exception of the late John Bensusan-Butt, few have attempted to examine the artist's Suffolk sitters in any detail. Most other commentators have shied away from his early work, preferring to study his later paintings which made such an impact on visitors to public exhibitions in London. By publishing a couple of new acquisitions at Gainsborough's House, which with characteristic generosity Norman Scarfe has done so much to encourage, this article will examine Gainsborough's interest in music, caricature and printmaking, subjects that will interest cultural historians from many disciplines. Although there has been little comment about his early paintings, Gainsborough's musicianship has proved, surprisingly, to be a subject of lively discussion. The fencing master, Henry Angelo, tells us that Gainsborough ‘could accompany a slow movement of the harpsichord, both on the fiddle and the flute, with taste and feeling’; andWilliam Thomas Parke, the oboist, reports that Gainsborough was ‘an excellent violin player’. The best known commentator on Gainsborough's musical proficiency was his friend,William Jackson, who remarked on his ability to play the violin, viol da gamba, and harp, concluding, somewhat sourly, that ‘he frittered away his musical talents; and though possessed of ear, taste, and genius, he never had application enough to learn his notes. He scorned to take the first step, the second was of course out of his reach; and the summit became unattainable.’ Such inconsistent reports make any intelligible appraisal of his abilities impossible. Perhaps Thomas Dodd's observation that he was ‘marked with a capricious love for change in the instruments on which he practised’ best reflects his enthusiasm and explains the attitude of his contemporaries.

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