RKD STUDIES

Either or both the Griffier brothers could have been associated with the young Gainsborough. Robert died in 1743, which does not rule him out as a teacher of young Gainsborough but which perhaps limits the opportunity of association. A greater problem in ascertaining Robert’s significance in this regard, is the difficulty of knowing which of the three Robert Griffiers was responsible for the paintings signed with that name. While there are plenty of paintings signed ‘Robert Griffier’, few are dated and this author has been unable to gain analytical access to any of the dated paintings. A significant piece of information, however, is Jan van Gool’s comment that he had, ‘seen pieces by Ruisdael sold, in which … [Robert] Griffier had painted statues and horses … so skilfully and deceptively … that they were mistaken and bought for originals …’.¹ As we will see, this activity could suggest a link to the young Gainsborough. John Griffier is more reliable date-wise and his dated works show technical similarities to young Gainsborough’s. The Thames during the Great Frost of 1739 [20] for example, contains large amounts of smalt, verdigris and lead-tin yellow.² His Billingbear, Berkshire of 1738 contains similar pigments plus orpiment and azurite, and his View of Hurstborne Priors of 1748 is the same.³ It is unlikely that Gainsborough was a formal apprentice in John or Robert Griffier’s studio, but probably more of a general studio assistant doing all sorts of jobs and learning as he went along. He was probably there in the early 1740s, certainly before he returned to live in Suffolk in 1748. The presence of unusual pigments in Gainsborough’s paintings which probably date before 1748 would suggest that the association was earlier rather than later in that decade. While it is a pity that, other than in the composition of the paint, we have no historical documentation to bolster this proposed association, there is circumstantial evidence to link the young Gainsborough with the Griffiers.

Firstly, Waterhouse, in his book on Gainsborough published in 1958, cites a 1762 auction sale catalogue of Mr Oldfield’s pictures, which had two items of interest: ’17. A Dutch landscape, repaired by Mr Gainsborough. 56. Wynants, a landscape, the figures by Mr Gainsborough.’⁴ As Mark Bills has established, John Oldfield was a drawing master who worked in the same milieu as Gainsborough and would have known him.⁵ As described above, the Griffier family specialised in imitating the styles of 17th-century masters and came close to fakery in allowing such paintings to be sold as by those masters. Where better than in a Griffier studio to learn tricks like inserting figures into a landscape by a 17th-century Dutch painter, as Robert was recorded doing in Amsterdam? On the question of restoration, many artists turned their hand to that activity to keep the pot boiling and, as we have seen, both John and Robert Griffier did so too. Another intriguing possible link lies in the catalogue of a two-day auction held at Christie’s in June 1773. It is described, ‘A Catalogue of a Collection of Pictures, of Mr John Griffier, of Pall Mall, Deceased’.⁶ Of the 68 lots on the first day and 71 on the second, the majority were landscapes or subject pictures by (or purporting to be by) Dutch, Flemish and Italian 17th-century masters, with a few portraits as well. There were also a couple each of German and Spanish pictures and six paintings by known English artists: four landscapes by Smith (George Smith of Chichester, 1714–1776), one C. Jansen (Cornelius Jonson van Ceulen, 1593–1661), and lot 68 (second day), ‘Mr. Gainsborough, A landscape with figures’. It is to be noted that there were no paintings by Hogarth, Allan Ramsay, George Lambert, Sir Joshua Reynolds nor any of the other British painters whose work was successful in this period. Might this be interpreted as a link between the Griffiers and Gainsborough?⁷

Finally, John Griffier lived in Pall Mall North from 1743 to 1747; from 1748 until 1750 he lived across the road in Pall Mall Court [21].⁸ In 1774 Gainsborough moved from Bath to London and of all the fashionable streets he could have picked to help attract his fashionable clientele, he chose a house in Pall Mall – Schomberg House, a few doors west of Pall Mall Court. As Susan Sloman has observed, Pall Mall, as well as being a street of royal and aristocratic residences, housed Lambe’s auction room in which the Royal Academy’s annual exhibitions were held from 1769 to 1799, and also James Christie’s great room, where the Free Society of Artists held its exhibitions from 1769 to 1775.⁹ The art-buying public was right there on the doorstep. Another benefit, however, would have been that Schomberg House backed onto St. James’s Park and had a large garden behind it. Gainsborough’s painting-room and showroom were in extensions at the back of Schomberg house; while it is not clear whether there were outbuildings there in the 1740s, it would have been evident that there was plenty of room for such.¹⁰ Perhaps, as a young assistant exploring the area of Pall Mall in the early 1740s, Gainsborough would have known that the houses on the south side of the street held possibilities for artists in their back gardens as well as at their fashionable fronts.

20
Jan Griffier (II)
The Thames during the Great Frost of 1739, 1739 or later
London (England), Guildhall Art Gallery, inv./cat.nr. 1706

21
Pall Mall and Pall Mall Court (No 46). Find your way round Georgian London, MOTCO, 2007. Schomberg House is shown in diagrammatic style, several doors to the left of Pall Mall Court. Pall Mall Court is also shown in John Rocque’s map of 1746, The A to Z of Georgian London, London Topographical Society, 1982, p.10