MARCH 15, 2012
\nby Sara Morano ’14, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is by Gainsborough, but it\u2019s a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hugh Belsey, the world\u2019s foremost expert on the artwork of 18th-century English painter Thomas Gainsborough, put to rest the mystery surrounding \u201cLady Impey\u201d in front of a standing-room-only crowd in Patrick Lecture Hall Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cPortrait of Lady Impey\u201d has been hanging at White Oaks since 1975 — long before the estate housed Furman\u2019s presidents.\u00a0Homozel Mickel Daniel purchased the painting\u00a0at auction, and the university acquired the painting and the estate when Mrs. Daniel bequeathed them to Furman in 1992.<\/p>\n
\u201cLady Impey\u201d was always considered to be a genuine Gainsborough, but in 2010, when a descendent of the Impey family\u00a0began a worldwide search for the painting of rumored existence, doubts were cast.<\/p>\n
The possibility arose that Furman’s\u00a0portrait was completed by Gainsborough\u2019s nephew and apprentice, Gainsborough Dupont. The difference between the work of the master and that of\u00a0his apprentice was too close to be put to rest by the art dealers at Sotheby\u2019s. A California collection even claimed the original, entertaining the possibility of two Lady Impeys, a convoluted suggestion that Belsey\u00a0dismissed as “rubbish.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve led a rather sad life and looked at nothing else but Gainsboroughs as I have, you know,\u201d is how Belsey self-effacingly explained the confidence with\u00a0which he issued\u00a0his verdict on the painting\u2019s authenticity.<\/p>\n
Belsey\u2019s remarkable knowledge of\u00a0the life and works of Gainsborough was evident\u00a0in the first portion of his lecture. He devoted the\u00a0second portion to\u00a0 revealing and explaining his verdict. The longtime curator of Gainsborough\u2019s house in Suffolk treated the audience to a brief history of the painter and his works, eliciting chuckles and gasps along the way.<\/p>\n
Belsey spoke of Gainsborough like an old friend at times, and the audience laughed at his comments on the artist’s\u00a0life. They learned Gainsborough was someone who, early on, \u201cdidn\u2019t have\u00a0his act together at all.\u201d He painted friends in his \u201cAcademicians of the Royal Academy\u201d with hearing trumpets, as they were known to be \u201cdeaf as a post.\u201d He endlessly frustrated exhibitions when he submitted oversized pieces at the last minute by a rough sketch of their dimensions.<\/p>\n
The audience gasped when it learned\u00a0the fate of\u00a0some of the paintings produced by Gainsborough. His \u201cThe Three Elder Princesses,\u201d a full-length portrait of King George III\u2019s\u00a0eldest daughters held by the Royal Collection, was cut across the middle by a gardener challenged to hang the oversized portrait. \u201cThe Woodsman,\u201d a piece of particular creative importance, was burned in a fire.<\/p>\n
Furman\u2019s own “Lady Impey” suffered the additions of an ill-fitting \u201cGainsborough hat,” patches of pearly red hair, and damaging relining of the canvas at the hands of a 1904 art dealer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the best Gainsborough in the world, but it is one, and it will be in my catalog,\u201d said Belsey of “Lady Impey.”\u00a0The expert who\u00a0\u201cknows more about Thomas Gainsborough than Gainsborough knew about himself\u201d settled the mystery of the painting\u00a0once and\u00a0for all to the sound of applause from the\u00a0audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MARCH 15, 2012
\nby Sara Morano ’14, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is by Gainsborough, but it\u2019s a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hugh Belsey, the world\u2019s foremost expert on the artwork of 18th-century English painter Thomas Gainsborough, put to rest the mystery surrounding \u201cLady Impey\u201d in front of a standing-room only crowd in\u00a0Patrick Lecture Hall Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-art"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}