The Blue Boy

Who is asking?

10th- and 11th-grade chemistry students at Birmingham Community Charter High School in Lake Balboa, California. ​Students wrote these questions after exploring The Blue Boy's history.

Who is answering? ​

Melinda McCurdy, Ph.D. is The Huntington’s curator of British art. ​She received her doctorate in art history from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a specialization in the field of British art. She has worked in the curatorial department of The Huntington since 2000. She curates exhibitions, writes, and lectures on historical British and European art from an interdisciplinary perspective, examining the political and social forces that shape visual cultures of the past.

Christina O’Connell ​is The Huntington’s senior paintings conservator.​ She received her master’s degree in art conservation with a concentration in paintings from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. Since 2013, she has worked at The Huntington, where she developed the first paintings conservation program. O’Connell has been in the field of conservation for almost 20 years, treating and studying paintings from the 15th to the 20th century.

Questions about the Painting​

What makes The Blue Boy so special?

Melinda and Christina: A series of exhibitions and publications in the 19th and early 20th centuries made The Blue Boy a well-known image. It was reproduced in prints and on household items, like chocolate tins, trays, and lamps. Many people knew the painting, and many people grew up with an image of it in their house.​

Why did Gainsborough use blue? Why that specific blue? Did it have anything to do with his rivalry with Joshua Reynolds? Was Reynolds his inspiration for the painting? ​

Melinda and Christina: The outfit that the Blue Boy is wearing was an actual garment that he used as a studio prop. It shows up in several other paintings. He painted it blue because it was blue. The choice of blue does not really have anything to do with Reynolds, but Reynolds later wrote about the use of blue, so people think it was due to The Blue Boy.

How did art historians draw their conclusion that the boy in the painting was the son of a friend?​

Melinda: The first owner of the painting was a man named Jonathan Buttall, who was a friend of the Gainsborough family. In the early 19th century, after Gainsborough and Buttall had both died, the painting was lent to an exhibition and there it was mistakenly called a portrait of its first owner. ​

In fact, the model for The Blue Boy is probably Gainsborough Dupont, the artist’s nephew and namesake. Dupont lived with the Gainsborough family and served as his uncle’s studio assistant. He’s the right age for the figure in the painting and would have been an easily accessible model. Plus, Gainsborough painted him on at least one more occasion wearing the same outfit. ​

Why did Gainsborough change his original drawing and get rid of the dog in the painting?​​

Christina and Melinda: Gainsborough changed his mind about the composition after he fully painted the dog. There is no known preparatory drawing for this painting. In infrared, we can see a quick outline for the composition of the figure. ​

We don’t have any documentation for why Gainsborough changed the composition of The Blue Boy prior to sending the painting to its first exhibition. We know from X-rays that he only decided to paint out the dog once he had worked up the composition to near completion. We can only guess why he got rid of it, but if you try to imagine what the painting would have looked like with the dog in it, you can get an idea. A large, white, fluffy dog would have been a distraction from the figure of the boy. Gainsborough was using The Blue Boy as a sort of advertisement of his skill as a portraitist, so it is possible that he painted over the dog so potential clients could focus on his skill with painting the human figure.​

The Painting's History​

Where did 18th-century artists get their paints?​

Christina: During the 18th century, artists would get their pigments, oils, and resins from suppliers to make their own paints, or from colormen who would provide premade materials.​

How were paintings taken care of during the 18th century? What effects did this have on the paintings?​

Christina: In the 18th century, artists studied old master painters from generations before them, and they knew that natural resin varnishes would discolor and need to be removed. Many artists would wait a certain amount of time before applying their varnish so that it would be a separate layer, making it easier to remove without disrupting the paint. Conservators also know that some artists may have added resins, oils, or other media to their paintings to create transparent glazes, and this can have a big impact on how to approach the cleaning of a painting with these layers.​

Some artists kept notebooks with details about their paintings, including treatments or restoration. Joseph Wright of Derby, a contemporary of Gainsborough, provides a good example. In one of his account books, he included a detailed description of the materials and process needed for lining a painting. ​

Why was there a rivalry between Gainsborough and Reynolds? Was it a friendly rivalry or full of animosity?​

Melinda: Both Gainsborough and Reynolds were portraitists, and they often competed for the same clients. They also had different approaches to art. Gainsborough modeled his style after the richly colored works of the 17th-century artist Anthony van Dyck, while Reynolds preferred classical Greek or Roman sculpture or works by Renaissance artists like Michelangelo. They argued often so I wouldn’t necessarily call it a friendly rivalry. When Gainsborough died, Reynolds dedicated a lecture to him. It seems there was some respect between the two.​

The Blue Boy was a national treasure in England. Why was it sold to an American in 1921?​

Melinda: Though the painting was a national treasure, it was in private hands. The painting was sold by the Duke of Westminster to help pay for the inheritance taxes he owed after his father’s death. England’s economy was in terrible shape after World War I, and high taxes forced many aristocratic families to sell off portions of their inheritance to pay the bills. They could not sell entailed land (property that was tied to an estate and passed through inheritance, ensuring it remained in one family). They could sell unentailed property, such as works of art. The American economy was doing well, and wealthy Americans were interested in buying art. Many of the great works of art now in American museums entered the country at that time.​

Has there been any controversy associated with this painting (besides the sale to Henry E. Huntington)?​

Melinda: As with many famous artworks, people build up stories around them. The recent research into the identity of the sitter was considered mildly controversial when it was first published, but I can’t think of any other major controversies surrounding the picture. Of course, when Henry E. Huntington bought the painting, it made big news due to the high price paid for it, in addition to the fact that it was leaving England for America. ​
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