Thomas Gainsborough

Abel Moysey

c.1764

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

Artist
Thomas Gainsborough 1727–1788
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions
Support: 578 × 457 mm
frame: 839 × 719 × 83 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by H.G. and the Rev. F.L. Moysey 1861
Reference
N00678

Display caption

Abel Moysey was a well-known doctor based in the fashionable spa town of Bath, where Gainsborough was also worked. Gainsborough painted this portrait in lieu of doctor’s fees, presumably for the treatment he received after a bout of venereal disease, contracted from prostitutes in London in 1763.  

Moysey is shown looking dreamily into the distance, as if he was unaware of being painted. He is every bit the ‘man of feeling’.

Gallery label, September 2004

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