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Description: PROPERTY OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY SOLD TO ESTABLISH THE BORTHWICK-NORTON BEQUEST THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH R.A. 1727 - 1788 PORTRAIT OF ANNE THISTLETHWAITE, COUNTESS OF CHESTERFIELD (1759-1798)

half length, wearing a cream dress

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

By descent from the sitter to Lieutenant-Colonel Evelyn William Thistlethwaite;
By descent to his nephew, Frank-Hugh Pakenham Borthwick-Norton who married Eva Sardinia Borthwick-Norton, by whose executors bequeathed to the Royal Scottish Academy
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Ellis Waterhouse, Gainsborough, 1958, p.59, no.142
CATALOGUE NOTE

The sitter was the daughter of the Revd. Thomas Thistlethwaite, of Norman Court, Hampshire, and his wife, Selina, daughter of Peter Bathurst, of Clarendon Park, Wiltshire. On 20th August 1777 she was married, as his first wife, to Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield who had succeeded in 1773 to the title and to the substantial family estates at Bretby in Derbyshire. He was responsible for employing Wyatville to rebuild Bretby, a task completed by his only son, the 6th Earl.

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Dimensions: 76 by 64 cm., 30 by 25 in.