Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, painted in 1777 and held at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, depicts one of the most innovative artists working in Georgian London — a painter of dramatic landscapes and theatrical spectacle who had revolutionized stage design at Drury Lane and would later create the Eidophusikon, a miniature theater of moving light and sound effects that anticipated modern cinema. De Loutherbourg (1740-1812) was Alsatian-born and trained in Paris before coming to London, where he became a naturalized British subject and a Royal Academician. Gainsborough's portrait of this fellow artist with whom he shared interests in dramatic landscape effects and theatrical visual culture has the easy familiarity of a work painted among equals. The Dulwich Picture Gallery holds the portrait in a collection that includes major works by Gainsborough, Reynolds, and van Dyck, preserving the interconnected world of Georgian visual culture in which de Loutherbourg and Gainsborough both worked.

Gainsborough captures his fellow artist with characteristic informality and sympathy, using warm tones and fluid brushwork. The portrait reflects the friendship between two artists who shared an interest in landscape and atmospheric effects.