Thomas Nuthall with a Dog and Gun

Thomas Nuthall with a Dog and Gun, painted around 1773, depicts the fashionable sporting portrait type that was enormously popular with the Georgian landed gentry—the country gentleman identified through the markers of hunting culture: dog, gun, outdoor setting. Nuthall, a solicitor who served as Solicitor to the Treasury, belongs to the professional classes that aspired to the sporting lifestyle of the landed aristocracy. The sporting portrait democratized gentry self-presentation, allowing successful professionals to identify themselves visually with the values of landed independence and outdoor recreation that distinguished the English ruling class. Dance's service to both the genuine aristocracy and the aspirational professional class reflects his commercial flexibility.

The outdoor setting and sporting accessories create a more relaxed composition than Dance's formal portraits, with the landscape handled in broad, atmospheric tones that frame the precisely rendered figure.