Splendid 18th Century British School half length portrait by the esteemed British Portraitist Thomas Beach (1738-1806) | Oil on Canvas | Entitled Portrait of a Gentleman | Housed in a custom gold gilded carved wood frame | Approx. Dimensions: Canvas: 29.5" H x 24.5" W - Framed: 34.5" H x 29.5" W | Thomas Beach (1738 – 17 December 1806) was an English portrait painter who studied under Sir Joshua Reynolds. Beach was born at Milton Abbas, Dorset in 1738, and showed a strong predilection for art from an early age. In 1760, under the patronage of Lord Dorchester’s family, he became a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, while at the same time studying at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy. He then settled at the fashionable resort of Bath, where he was in high demand for his portraits and portrait groups. The British (or English) school, was a dominant school of painting in England throughout the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th. Its establishment marked the rise of a national tradition that began with the emergence of native artists whose works were no longer provincial but rivaled continental art in quality and ended by exercising considerable influence on the course of European painting. The British School flourished with portrait painters that rivaled the best on the Continent.

Inspected in the frame. With the exception of a small lacuna as pictured and the age appropriate craquelure, there is no apparent damage to rendering or medium. Paint / Pigment , while having age appropriate craquelure, is stable without flaking. Slight stretcher impressions at top, with small frame rubbing to bottom right. Original Stretcher Bars, original unlined canvas attached with period nails, missing some keys.

34.75 x 29.5 x 2.5 in