John Plampin

John Plampin from 1752 in the National Gallery is among the most characteristic of Gainsborough's early Suffolk period paintings, combining portraiture with landscape in the informal outdoor 'conversation piece' format that he had adopted as his signature approach. Plampin was a Suffolk country gentleman depicted reclining under a tree with his horse behind him, an informality that would have been impossible in the more ceremonial portrait formats then fashionable in London. The fusion of individual likeness with naturalistic English landscape was Gainsborough's most original contribution to British art at this stage, and this painting stands as one of its best early examples. Gainsborough had studied the Dutch landscape tradition and the French Rococo draughtsman Gravelot during his London training, and Plampin's relaxed pose in its leafy setting shows both influences absorbed into something distinctly and freshly English.

Gainsborough renders the sitter within a naturalistic Suffolk landscape, using the integration of figure and setting to create a characteristically English portrait type.