




Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.(Sudbury 1727-1788 London)Portrait of Vice Admiral Thomas Brodrick (1795-1769), half-length, wearing an Admiralty brocade jacket, within a painted oval
Sold for £35,200 inc. premium
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Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (Sudbury 1727-1788 London)
oil on canvas
76.8 x 63.4cm (30 1/4 x 24 15/16in).
Footnotes
Provenance
William Brodrick, 8th Viscount Midleton (1830-1907) by 1890, and thence by descent until offered
Sale, Robinson and Fisher, London, 26 November 1931, lot 85 (as Admiral Boscawen by R.E. Pine)
Sale, Christie's, London, 15 April 1994, lot 22 (as Circle of Gainsborough), where purchased after the sale by
With Rafael Valls Ltd., London
Private Collection, UK
Literature
H. Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough. The Portraits, Fancy Pictures and Copies after Old Masters, London, 2019, vol. I, p. 104, cat. no. 104, ill.
Thomas Brodrick was born in 1704, and was the only son of William Brodrick, Attorney-General of Jamaica. He entered the Navy as a young man, and was promoted to Captain by 1741. In 1756, Brodrick commanded the reinforcements for Admiral Byng in the Mediterranean as a Rear Admiral, and subsequently sat on Byng's court martial when he was sent home under arrest. Brodrick narrowly escaped death in 1758, when as Second-in-Command his ship caught fire, and he had to be rescued and returned to Gibraltar. He was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1759.
He married Mary Robins in 1735, with whom he had a son and four daughters. He died in 1769, 'of a cancer in his face'.