Object number
TN.2009.2366
Title
Youth with Cricket Bat
Date
1790 - 1790
Creator
Production notes
as assessed by Doerr
Material
Size
114 x 87 cm
image: 98 x 71 cm
Description
Full length, frontal portrait of a young boy standing in the lee of an oak tree leaning on a cricket bat, looking left. Wearing dark blue coat, yellow breeches and waistcoat.
Display caption
Youth with Cricket Bat, 1790
Attributed to Francis Alleyne (b.1774 d. 1790)
Oil on canvas
This picture has all the traditional compositional elements of an 18th century British portrait – a sitter in formal dress standing in the lee of an oak tree, the traditional symbol of England, surrounded by countryside in a crosslegged stance that was a conventional pose of gentility.
In portraits around this time identity was seen to be rooted in external attributes, conveyed through the body and face or through props and symbols.
The painting was, in the early catalogues of MCC, attributed to Thomas Gainsborough and at one time the boy was thought to be of Royal blood. However nothing concrete is known of either the artist or the sitter, though the latter appears an angelic English boy of high status.
MCC Collections
Object number TN.2009.2366
Object name
Object Category
