Rare Gainsborough portraits go on display

"Exceptionally rare" portraits by the renowned 18th century artist Thomas Gainsborough are on display after being donated to a small museum.

The paintings show four members of the Tugwell family, from Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, who were painted around 1760.

Humphrey Tugwell owned a dye house, mill and pin factory. Their paintings are now on display at Bath's No.1 Royal Crescent.

Senior curator for Bath Preservation Trust Dr Amy Frost said: "The portraits are remarkable for capturing two generations of a manufacturing family."

The portraits have been acquired by No.1 Royal Crescent under the acceptance in lieu scheme.

This allows inheritance tax bills to be settled by transferring cultural objects to public collections.

"When I opened the email saying 'Do you want four Gainsborough portraits?' my first reaction was to ask: 'Is this real?' especially as it then said 'as a gift'.

"We're a small museum, and a gift like this can be revolutionary in terms of the quality of what we display," said Ms Frost.

Ms Frost added: "It is exceptionally rare for a set of four portraits of members of the same family by Thomas Gainsborough to survive together.

"Rarer still is the fact that the sitters are middle-class manufacturers from a small West Country town, not aristocratic visitors to Bath.

"Few comparable sets of portraits by Gainsborough survive, making these pre-eminent depictions of middle-class sitters and ones with strong local significance to the story of Bath and Bradford-on-Avon."

The four portraits will feature in a new exhibition called Being There, which runs from 14 September to 23 February.

Director of museums for the trust Patrizia Ribul said: “Thomas Gainsborough would have been living in Bath at the time he undertook the Tugwell commissions, so it is fantastic that we now have the opportunity to display them here in the heart of the city."

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