Editing Thomas Gainsborough (section)

==Reputation==

[[File:Thomas Gainsborough - The Honourable Mrs Graham (1757 - 1792) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham]]'' (1777) [[Scottish National Gallery]]]]
[[File:Thomas Gainsborough 001.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[The Harvest Wagon]]'' (1767)]]
[[File:Mrs. Ralph Izard (Alice De Lancey, 1746-47–1832) MET DP162167.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Alice De Lancey Izard]] (between 1747 and 1788) [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]]]
His more famous works, ''[[The Blue Boy]]''; ''[[Mr and Mrs Andrews]]''; ''[[Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham|Portrait of Mrs. Graham]]''; ''Mary and Margaret: The Painter's Daughters''; ''William Hallett and His Wife Elizabeth, nee Stephen'', known as ''[[Mr and Mrs William Hallett|The Morning Walk]]''; and ''Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher'', display the unique individuality of his subjects. 
His rival, [[Joshua Reynolds]] wrote that the painting ''Girl with Pigs'' was "the best picture he (Gainsborough) ever painted or perhaps ever will".<ref name="Willes">Willes, F.W. Letters of Joshua Reynolds, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1929</ref>

Gainsborough's works became popular with collectors from the 1850s on, after [[Lionel de Rothschild]] began buying his portraits. The rapid rise in the value of pictures by Gainsborough and also by Reynolds in the mid 19th century was partly because the Rothschild family, including [[Ferdinand de Rothschild]] began collecting them.<ref>Hall, M. ''Waddesdon Manor: The Heritage of a Rothschild House'', Scala, London, 2009, p. 77</ref>

In 2011, Gainsborough's portrait of ''Miss Read'' (Mrs Frances Villebois) was sold by [[Michael Pearson, 4th Viscount Cowdray]], for a record price of £6.54M, at Christie's in London.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/thomas-gainsborough-ra-sudbury-suffolk-1727-1788-london-5460654-details.aspx| title = Christie's}}</ref> She was a matrilineal descendant of [[Cecily Neville, Duchess of York]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.le.ac.uk/richardiii/science/familytree.html|title=Richard III – Family tree – Ann of York – Michael Ibsen – University of Leicester|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150120101651/http://www.le.ac.uk/richardiii/science/familytree.html|archive-date=20 January 2015}}</ref><ref name="Fig1">{{Cite journal|title=Figure 1: Genealogical links between Richard III and modern-day relatives who participated in this study.|pages=5631|journal=Nature Communications|volume=5|author=Turi E. King|doi=10.1038/ncomms6631|pmid=25463651|pmc=4268703|date=2014|display-authors=etal}}</ref>