Photo of a large gallery with dark blue walls, portrait paintings in gold frames and historic musical instruments

18th-century British paintings

Included in general admission tickets
Suitable for all ages
Wheelchair accessible

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The Picture Gallery on the second floor presents one of the most important displays of British portraiture in the world. Highlights include works by Thomas Gainsborough, Angelica Kauffmann, Thomas Lawrence and Stubbs.

The display also includes an important group of theatrical paintings by Johann Zoffany (1733-1810), which formed a major bequest of paintings from the collection of the novelist and playwright, Somerset Maugham. Key works in the collection include a painting of David Garrick and Susannah Maria Cibber in Venice Preserv’d which once belonged to the great actor Sir Henry Irving; and Charles Macklin as Shylock and Garrick as Sir John Brute in The Provok’d Wife which once belonged to Garrick himself.

The Picture Gallery at the Holburne. Photo Evoke Pictures
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), ‘The Byam Family’, oil on canvas, 1762-66
Johan Zoffany (1733-1810), ‘The Auriol and Dashwood Families’, c. 1783-7, oil on canvas.
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), ‘Arthur Atherley’, oil on canvas, 1791
Johan Zoffany (1733-1810), ‘David Garrick as Sir John Brute’, oil on canvas, about 1763
Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807), ‘Henrietta Laura Pulteney’, oil on canvas, about 1777
George Stubbs (1724-1806), ‘Rev Robert Carter Thelwall and His Family’, oil on canvas, 1776
Historical instruments in the Picture Gallery. Photo Evoke Pictures