The Blue Boy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
| The Blue Boy |
| Thomas Gainsborough, circa 1770 |
| oil on canvas |
| 177.8 × 112.1 cm |
| Huntington Library, San Marino, California |
The Blue Boy (c. 1770) is an oil painting by Thomas Gainsborough that now resides in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The painting itself is on a fairly large canvas for a portrait that measures 48 inches wide by 70 inches tall. Perhaps Gainsborough's most famous work, it is thought to be a portrait of Jonathan Buttall, the son of a wealthy hardware merchant. Gainsborough had originally painted something different on the canvas but then decided to paint the portrait of the blue boy over it. It is a historical costume study as well as a portrait: the youth in his 17th-century apparel is regarded as Gainsborough's homage to Anthony Van Dyck.
It is said that Gainsborough painted the portrait mainly to prove to his chief rival Joshua Reynolds that it was possible to use blue as the central color of a portrait.
The painting was in Jonathan Buttall's possession until he filed for bankruptcy in 1796. It was bought first by the politician John Nesbitt and then, in 1802, by the portrait painter John Hoppner. In about 1809 The Blue Boy entered the collection of the Earl Grosvenor and remained with this descendants until its sale by the second Duke of Westminster to the dealer Joseph Duveen in 1921. In a move that caused a public outcry in Britain, it was then sold on to the American railway pioneer Henry Edwards Huntington for $182,200 (then a record price for any painting). Before its departure to California in 1922, The Blue Boy was briefly put on display at the National Gallery where it was seen by 90,000 people.
[edit] Appearances in popular culture
In popular culture, the easy recognizability of the Blue Boy has, like the Mona Lisa, lent it to numerous parodies including versions in which the boy is replaced by Mickey Mouse and Kermit the Frog.
- In the 1929 Laurel and Hardy short Wrong Again, the pair learn that a reward is being offered for The Blue Boy, which they believe to be not a painting but rather a prize horse at the stable where they work. Hilarity ensues as they attempt to deposit the horse at the home of the painting's wealthy owner.
- In the 1988 comedy film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! the Blue Boy (or a facsimile) hangs in the office of the wealthy villain played by Ricardo Montalbán, where it is eventually destroyed by Leslie Nielsen's bumbling protagonist character during a botched break-in attempt.
- In Ghostbusters II (1989), Dr. Janosz Poha exclaims to Peter Venkman, with heavy accent approximated, "Theees eeesn't Gainsborough's Blue Boy, ees Preeence Veego, Ruler of Carpathia and Moldavia!"
- A 1990 Life Magazine cover story[1] on the then recently deceased Jim Henson described a Kermit version of the portrait hanging in the second-floor conference room of the 1928 brownstone that served as Henson's New York City headquarters.
- Wesley Crusher is dressed as the Blue Boy in the third season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Hollow Pursuits."
- In Die Another Day (2002), James Bond manages to slice through the painting with a sword whilst sparring.
- "Blue Boy" is an album by Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith.
- The Blue Boy is also a painting in Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World.
[edit] References
- Conisbee, Philip. The Ones That Got Away, essay from Saved! 100 Years of the National Art Collection Fund (2003, ed. Richard Verdi). London: Scala
- Tyler, David. Jonathan Buttall in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). Oxford: Oxford University Press
- http://www.gardenofpraise.com/art39.htm
