Thomas Gainsborough, 'Dr Ralph Schomberg', about 1770

Dr Ralph Schomberg

Thomas Gainsborough

Room 34

About the work

Overview

In 1759 Gainsborough moved to the fashionable spa town of Bath, where he established a very successful portrait-painting practice and remained for 15 years. He painted this portrait of Dr Ralph Schomberg, aged about 56, in Bath around 1770.

Gainsborough consulted various doctors during his years in Bath, both for his own medical problems and about the recurring mental instability of his elder daughter, Mary. This portrait may have been painted in place of medical fees.

Dr Schomberg stands at a slight angle to us. His pose is upright and subtly deferential, and his expression conveys benevolent concern. The romantically wild yet artificial landscape, with a wooded hillside under a darkening sky, is painted with enormous speed and sureness, using bold unblended brushstrokes so fluid that dark paint has run down the canvas at the bottom left. The red of Schomberg’s frock coat has faded unevenly in the light.

In-depth

In 1759 Gainsborough moved to the fashionable spa town of Bath, where he established a very successful portrait-painting practice and remained for 15 years. This portrait of Dr Ralph Schomberg, aged about 56, was painted in Bath in about 1770.

The portrait is similar to other robust, outdoor male full-lengths which Gainsborough was painting at the time. Schomberg stands at a slight angle to us. His attitude is upright and subtly deferential, and he seems less at ease in the countryside than Gainsborough’s aristocratic sitters such as John Plampin. He holds his cane in front of him in a grave and thoughtful manner appropriate for a physician. The head of the cane would have been stuffed with pungent herbs which would have been held under the nose to ward off foul smells and disease. He wears a fashionable rolled and powdered wig and an expression of benevolent concern.

The romantically wild yet artificial landscape background, with a wooded hillside under a darkening sky, is echoed by Gainsborough in other full-length portraits of this period. It is painted with enormous speed and sureness, in bold unblended brushstrokes so fluid that dark paint has run down the canvas at the bottom left. Gainsborough’s daughter Margaret observed that he painted with colours that were ‘very liquid’. The crimson pigment in Dr Schomberg’s coat has faded unevenly – in places bleached by sunlight – leaving it a brown-beige colour with some patchy areas of deep red and pink. The extreme fading on Schomberg’s shoulders now looks as though a dusting of powder has fallen from his wig.

Gainsborough consulted various doctors during his years in Bath, both for his own medical problems and about the recurring mental instability of his elder daughter Mary. He was reluctant to accept a previous diagnosis that Mary’s illness was ‘a family complaint’ (possibly a veiled diagnosis of congenital syphilis) and that it was probably incurable. Gainsborough called in Dr Schomberg and Dr Charleton and was relieved when they diagnosed a ‘delirious fever’ and ’soon cured her.‘ However, Mary struggled with mental illness for the rest of her life.

Gainsborough painted four physicians known to have treated himself and his family in Bath. This portrait may have been painted for Dr Schomberg in place of medical fees. At that time, Gainsborough’s portrait charges almost certainly far exceeded his doctors’ fees, but he may have found more rewarding material for portraiture in the attentive expressions of his doctors than in the faces of most of his fashionable Bath sitters.

Ralph Schomberg was the eldest son of the German Jewish doctor Meyer Löw Schomberg, who was one of the most successful physicians in London. Ralph was the black sheep of the family and frequently in debt. In 1777 he was caught stealing money intended for Bath Hospital from the church’s collection plate. He left Bath in shame and settled in Reading, where he died on 29 June 1792.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Dr Ralph Schomberg
Artist: Thomas Gainsborough
Artist dates: 1727 - 1788
Date made: about 1770
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 233 × 153.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1862
Inventory number: NG684
Location: Room 34
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 19th-century French Frame

Provenance

Painted for the sitter, perhaps in lieu of medical fees; after his death in 1792 and that of his widow Mrs Elizabeth Schomberg in 1807, passed into the joint ownership of his grandsons; presented to the National Gallery in August 1835 by one of the sitter’s grandsons, Lieut. Henry Charles Schomberg RN, in the name of the Schomberg family, but after his elder brothers Alexander William Schomberg and Revd John Bathurst Schomberg protested that they had not consented to the gift, withdrawn and returned to the Schomberg family in May 1836; by 1856 owned by Joseph Trigge Schomberg QC, the sitter’s great-nephew, from whom purchased by the National Gallery 1862.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2021

Creating a National Collection

Southampton City Art Gallery

28 May 2021 - 2 September 2021
2023

Masterpieces from the National Gallery

Shanghai Art Museum East

17 January 2023 - 7 May 2023

National Museum of Korea

2 June 2023 - 9 October 2023

Hong Kong Palace Museum

22 November 2023 - 11 April 2024

Chimei Museum

2 May 2024 - 1 September 2024

Bibliography

1915

W.T. Whitley, Thomas Gainsborough, London 1915
1928

W.T. Whitley, Art in England 1800-1820, Cambridge 1928
1928

W.T. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England 1700-1799, London 1928
1946

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
1946

M. Davies, Paintings and Drawings on the Backs of National Gallery Pictures, London 1946
1959

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1959
1976

H. Potterton, Reynolds and Gainsborough, Themes and Painters in the National Gallery 2, London 1976
1988

D. Bomford, A. Roy and D. Saunders, 'Gainsborough's "Dr Ralph Schomberg"', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XII, 1988, pp. 44-57
1992

G. Reynolds, 'Auctioneers, Dealers, Constables and Crooks', Apollo, CXXXV, 1992
1998

J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
2000

Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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You've viewed 6 of 11 works

Thomas Gainsborough, 'Dr Ralph Schomberg', about 1770

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Thomas Gainsborough