(British, 1754-1797)

Portrait of a Woman, wearing a lace [fichu] and gold satin gown with green bow, unsigned, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in.; gilt wood and composition frame, with frameplate for "Gainsborough Dupont",

Notes: Gainsborough Dupont was the nephew and only assistant of Thomas Gainsborough. He also engraved many of his uncle’s works. This portrait displays similar brushwork to [William Thomas Lewis as Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet'] held by the National Portrait Gallery, London, and [Lady Mendip], Gainsborough's House. 

A facsimile of a document verso signed by "George Fuller Walker" gives the authorship of this painting to Joseph Siffred Duplessis (French, 1725-1802). George Fuller Walker appears to be a researcher and author with interest in southern and American Colonial history 18th. There seems to be no connection to paintings or portraits specifically as a point of scholarship.

lined with paste and linen with some lifting and cleavage, crackle, cupping, retouch, wear to pigment layers exposing underlying red bole, craquelure in face; frame with losses and restoration