Sir Francis Basset (1747–1821)

Gainsborough's Sir Francis Basset of around 1758 depicts a member of the Cornish mining and landowning family whose considerable wealth derived from the copper and tin industries that made Cornwall Britain's most important mining region. The Basset family's industrial and political prominence made a portrait commission appropriate documentation of achieved status, and Gainsborough's Bath period treatment creates the standard image of prosperous landed authority.

Even at seventeen, Gainsborough demonstrates a natural sympathy with the sitter and an instinctive understanding of how paint can convey personality. The handling is necessarily youthful and somewhat tentative, but the warmth of observation and the feeling for the child's character already suggest the painter he would become.