THE CITY GALLERY
We can now report that the roof of this Gallery has been replaced and
work is proceeding on installing a laylight and on decorating. A feature of this Gallery will be a
stage, 18 inches high, extending from wall to wall with a depth of l8 1/2 feet. When this room is
finished, in October, it will be the first time for three years that the whole Gallery has been open
to the public.
AUCKLAND GALLERY ASSOCIATES
In April the Associates sponsored a
dramatised version of the Whistler v Ruskin libel trial, read by members of the New Zealand Players
and produced by Mr. Richard Campion. A large audience found this performance very agreeable.
During the Festival, an evening party was given at which many of the Festival artists were present
and contributed a series of entertainments in a not too serious vein.
The membership of the Associates is rising,
but more members are required.
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, RA (1727-1788)
British
PORTRAIT OF JOHN SPARROWE, ESQ
Oil on canvas 50 x 40 ins
This portrait was
purchased by the Mackelvie
Trust last year. It belongs to .Gainsborough's
Ipswich period and is dated 1754-5 by J. W.
Goodison. (Burlington Magazine, September
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1950.) In a letter, Professor Waterhouse suggests 1758. The portrait, which is
first mentioned in 1839 by John Wodderspoon in his Historic Sites and other remarkable and interesting
Places in the County of Suffolk, passed into the collection of Col F. M. Bailey, a descendant of the Sparrowe
family, who . still owns the Ancient House in Ipswich which-had been the Sparrowe home from 1573. John Sparrowe
himself was thirteen times bailiff of his native town before he died in 1762.
Gainsborough was in Ipswich from about 1747 until his removal to Bath in 1759. The portraits
of this period are finely modelled and have none of the fashionable overtones of the Bath and London periods. The
nearest paintings in style are those of the artist's daughters, in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery,
and the portrait of Sir William St Quintin, (the same sized canvas) painted in 1760-1 at Bath. This portrait, almost identical
in composition, would support the later date of 1758 suggested by Professor Waterhouse.
It is pleasant to note that this painting has a New Zealand connection; for one of the sitter's descendants,
Mr H. B. Sparrowe, is an Aucklander and has kindly lent us a watercolour of the family coat-of-arms, from which we are preparing
a replica to place on the frame. |
