A Boy with a Cat,Morning 1787

Thomas Gainsborough painted ‘A Boy with a Cat, Morning’ in England, sometime in the late 18th century. Here we see a young boy on the edge of a wood. At this time, the Royal Academy was still a fairly new institution, and the market for portraiture was booming. Gainsborough made his name and his fortune painting members of the aristocracy. Although he made many portraits, he craved recognition as a landscape painter. He depicts his society and its wealth, whilst also revealing his own artistic aspirations and frustrations. This painting may be a form of 'fancy picture' for which there was a growing market. These works were often sentimental depictions of rural children. This work seems to romanticise the idea of rural innocence and may be referencing the social changes that were brought about by industrialisation. The social historian can offer insight into this painting through careful analysis of the prevailing artistic institutions, the changing social landscape and the visual codes that reveal so much about the cultural values of the time.