Getty Museum
Portrait of James Christie (1730 - 1803)
Creator
Thomas GainsboroughArtist · 1727–1788
All works by this person →At age thirteen, Thomas Gainsborough arrived in London from the nearby countryside eager to become an artist. There he studied with a noted French artist and was influenced by seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting. In his early years, Gainsborough primarily painted landscapes and worked as a restorer for art dealers. Although his true desire was to paint landscapes exclusively, portraits we
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1778
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- English
- Department
- Paintings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
A charming and persuasive speaker, James Christie founded the fine arts auction house in London that still bears his name. He was a close friend and neighbor of Thomas Gainsborough, who painted this portrait. Gainsborough depicted the cultivated auctioneer leaning on one of the artist's own landscape paintings and holding a piece of paper in his right hand, perhaps an auction list. Christie wears a sober brown frock suit, a white linen shirt, and a formal wig. On the little finger of his left hand is a signet ring, and two pendant seals dangle from watches worn about his waist. His dress and jewelry befit a cosmopolitan English gentleman of the 1770s. The *Portrait of James Christie* hung in a place of honor at Christie's auction house in London. The auction house was a gathering place for collectors, dealers, and fashionable society. The portrait immortalized the auctioneer and perpetuated his association with Gainsborough, who was one of England's most famous portrait painters.
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