I was wandering the halls of the Getty Center today and came across this, and realised I didn’t have a shot of it. It’s the Portrait of James Christie, founder of Christie’s auction house, by Thomas Gainsborough. According to the label, Christie was a huge fan of Gainsborough, and he’s even leaning on one of Gainsborough’s landscapes in his portrait. So it’s a meta-Gainsborough in a very cool way. Too bad Gainsborough wasn’t a surrealist as there is serious potential for some kind of awesome infinite regression thing going on with that leaned on painting. Although the Getty’s label for this painting doesn’t mention it, the online catalog entry mentions the neat bit of history that this painting “hung in a place of honor at Christie’s auction house in London until it was sold in 1846.”
Technorati Tags: Getty, Getty Center, Thomas Gainsborough, Christie’s, James Christie, art, painting, oil painting