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076 Gainsborough House Museum, Suffolk<br />
Address: 46 Gainsborough Street, Sudbury CO10 2EU Web: www.gainsborough.org Tel: 01787 372958<br />
Hours: Mon–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 11am–5pm Dates: closed Good Friday & 23 Dec–2 Jan Entry:<br />
[D]£6.50 [C]free [A]£6.50 [child and student]£2 [Fam]£15<br />
THE EAST MIDLANDS AND EAST ANGLIA<br />
Thomas Gainsborough was (along with Joshua Reynolds, his chief rival) eighteenthcentury<br />
England’s leading portrait painter, and there’s no more fitting place to admire<br />
his work than here in the artist’s birthplace – a handsome sixteenth-century house that’s<br />
home to a superb collection of Gainsborough’s paintings, drawings and prints.<br />
The permanent collection contains numerous portraits and landscapes, many<br />
featuring the delicate, feathery brushwork and rich colours that typified Gainsborough’s<br />
later works. Highlights to look out for include the recently acquired Wooded Landscape<br />
with Old Peasant and Donkeys outside a Barn, and the charming portrait of the Pitminster<br />
Boy. Also represented here are works by other artists associated with Gainsborough,<br />
such as his nephew and studio assistant Gainsborough Dupont, some of whose paintings<br />
have been mistakenly sold as Gainsboroughs. The house – whose oldest parts date from<br />
around 1500 – provides a beautiful setting for the artworks and the various items of<br />
eighteenth-century furniture and Gainsborough memorabilia on display. Outside you’ll<br />
find an enchanting walled garden whose centrepiece is a 400-year-old mulberry tree.<br />
There are three disabled bays on Gainsborough Street, right outside the museum; if<br />
these are full, the car park behind North Street is about a five-minute walk away. Entry<br />
to the museum is through step-free double doors which wheelchair users will need<br />
help to open. Inside, the house is surprisingly accessible for such an old building, and<br />
is mostly manageable in a wheelchair (with some assistance). One area on the ground<br />
Gainsborough House Museum<br />
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