The Dutton Family in the Drawing Room of Sherborne Park, Gloucestershire (c. 1772): Art, History and Details

The Dutton Family in the Drawing Room of Sherborne Park, Gloucestershire (c. 1772) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johann Zoffany (German, 1733–1810).

The work and its context

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

This type of picture, known as a conversation piece, was invented in England in the 1700s and popular for the informal way it represented families. A father and daughter, mother and son, are strategizing over the next hand in a game of cards. The family recently lost a loved one, so the parents are dressed in full mourning (black clothing), and the siblings in lesser mourning (mauve, white, and gray).

Object facts

• Title: The Dutton Family in the Drawing Room of Sherborne Park, Gloucestershire
• Date: c. 1772
• Creator attribution: Johann Zoffany (German, 1733–1810)
• Culture: England
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 101.5 x 127 cm (39 15/16 x 50 in.); Framed: 124.5 x 149.9 x 7.6 cm (49 x 59 x 3 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2023.122

A detail from the museum

This is an idealized, not actual, room showing the sitters’ fashionable interior decorating aspirations.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Willoughby, L. "Sherborne House.", Connoisseur Vol. XXX (1911):
• Manners, Victoria, and George C. Williamson. John Zoffany, R.A., His Life and Works. 1735-1810. London: John Lane, 1920.
• Williamson, George C. English Conversation Pictures of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. London: B.T. Batsford, 1931.

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.