Portrait of Mary Anne Jolliffe (after 1788): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Mary Anne Jolliffe (after 1788) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gainsborough Dupont (British, 1754–1797).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The only assistant his famous uncle ever had, Gainsborough Dupont apprenticed with Thomas Gainsborough before setting up his own studio. It is often difficult to distinguish the late works of both artists. This painting is among Dupont’s best portraits. He captures the beauty of his sitter with soft, flickering brushstrokes, detailing her frilly collar and impressive hairstyle, curled and powdered according to the current style. This portrait originally hung alongside that of her husband Thomas in the drawing room of the couple’s home, Ammerdown House in Somerset, where Thomas’s portrait still hangs today.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Mary Anne Jolliffe
• Date: after 1788
• Creator attribution: Gainsborough Dupont (British, 1754–1797)
• Culture: England, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 75.5 x 63.5 cm (29 3/4 x 25 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.640

A detail from the museum

Gainsborough Dupont was the only assistant that his famous uncle Thomas Gainsborough ever took.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Belsey, Hugh. Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies After Old Masters. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. p. 1014-15.
• Description of the Mansion, Marbles, and Pictures, at Ammerdown, in Somersetshire. London, United Kingdom: Saunders and Otley, 1857.
• Gainsborough, Thomas. A Portrait of Lady Hylton by Thomas Gainsborough, 1727-1788. London, United Kingdom: M. Knoedler & Co.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.