Newly discovered Gainsborough portrait doubles its estimate at Bonhams

A packed saleroom saw fiercely competitive bidding for a number of paintings in Bonhams Old Master Paintings sale today, including a recently discovered portrait by Thomas Gainsborough, (British 1727-1788), which sold for £198,000 – over double its pre-sale estimate. A painting by the Dutch landscape artist Gaspar van Wittel (1653-1736) also fetched an impressive £826,400. The sale itself made a total of £2,876,960. The painting - a previously unrecorded work by Gainsborough – was bought by a private European collector on the telephone.

The portrait has been in the same family since it was commissioned in 1760 however, it was not until it was recently examined and authenticated by the leading expert on Gainsborough, that its true importance was realised. The oil on canvas painting features Humphrey Hall (1738-1801), son of Thomas Hall (1692-1748) a London merchant who made his fortune in the China Trade. Humphrey elevated the family from merchant class to gentry when he married the daughter of Lord St John. The Hall family residence, Goldings, in Hertfordshire, was sold by Humphrey in 1770 and he moved to Manadon near Plymouth.

The scene of the Piazza del Popolo in Rome by Gaspar van Wittel (1653-1736), which made £826,400, was last seen at auction in 1923. The painting sold to a private Italian collector. Lord Davies collection of 18th Century sporting paintings also sold extremely well, with a portrait by John Wooton (1682-1764), of Lord Essex’s racehorse Smiling Ball, making £105,600 against its pre-sale estimate of £60,000-80,000. The collection, which was put together in the 1930s by the Welsh politician, public benefactor and grandson of the famous industrialist, David Davies, made a total of £259,800.