Thomas Gainsborough was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy and the leading British portrait and landscape painter of the 18th century. His portraits combined aristocratic glamour with a fresh, informal naturalism; his feathery, shimmering brushwork was closer in spirit to Watteau than to the academic tradition of Reynolds. Blue Boy (c. 1770) is his most famous painting, a tour de force of silvery-blue silk rendered with breathtaking dexterity. He preferred landscape painting to portraiture but said that 'face painting' paid the bills.
