Revd. Tobias Rustat (1716–1793)

Gainsborough's Reverend Tobias Rustat of around 1757 depicts an Suffolk clergyman with the matter-of-fact directness of his mid-career portrait practice, creating a study in modest clerical respectability appropriate to a country incumbent. The portrait belongs to the group of Suffolk professional commissions that documented the social world of a painter not yet elevated to the fashionable heights of his Bath and London career, and demonstrates his consistent quality across the social spectrum of his sitters.

The clerical portrait is handled with the careful precision of Gainsborough's early manner, the wig and vestments painted with detailed attention. The face is rendered with warm, sympathetic observation that transcends the routine nature of the commission.