Ruth Leon recommends…The Red Boy – National Gallery

The Red Boy – National Gallery

Free: see links below
Much attention is currently being focused on the return of Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy, completed in 1770, to the National Gallery from its century on Californian museum walls. Last week, Gainsborough’s ‘The Blue Boy‘ returned in triumph to Trafalgar Square, exactly one hundred years, to the day, since it was last seen in England.
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‘The Blue Boy‘ represents the best of 18th century British art and is Gainsborough’s eloquent response to the legacy of Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and grand manner portraiture – therefore the display, ‘Gainsborough’s Blue Boy‘, will not only reunite a British icon with the British public, but also with grand manner paintings in the National Gallery Collection and beyond. Owned for the past century by Huntington Art Museum in San Marino, California, this is the only time it has ever been loaned out and the Huntington is making it clear that it will be the last, so British art lovers will be thronging to see it.

But, despite the many myths that surround it, not least that it’s a cornerstone of gay iconography, I prefer The Red Boy, Sir Thomas Lawrence’s delightful and myth-free portrait of 1825.

This painting was made when Lawrence, one of the first trustees of the National Gallery, was at the height of his powers as painter and portraitist, a year after the Gallery opened to the public in 1824. Such is its status and popularity that in 1967 ‘The Red Boy’ was the first painting ever to be included on a British postage stamp.

This past December, to my delight, the National Gallery finally acquired, with help from generous American donors, ‘The Red Boy’, formally titled Portrait of Charles William Lambton, from its private owners, and is now beautifully hung in the Gallery.

In the interim, it has been out for cleaning and restoration by the National Gallery Conservation Dept and I found these two splendid behind the scenes videos of the process.
Do watch these full screen as the difference between Before and After is startling and bears real attention.
First Look : behind the scenes in conservation

From conservation to gallery wall. National Gallery

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