DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61291#0027
RETURN TO LONDON 15
Sir George Beaumont, who belonged to an old
English family, and at whose table the great
portrait-painter, in spite of his usual shyness of
general society, was a frequent guest. Of this
baronet the story is told that he was fond of
dabbling in paint, and asked Sir Joshua Reynolds
to give him a hint about the mixing of colours,
to which the President of the Royal Academy
replied, “ Mix a little wax with them; but do not
tell anybody.” “ Will not that make the painting
crack ? ” asked Sir George; to which Sir Joshua
naively answered, “ All good pictures crack.”
Sir George Beaumont, who became much
attached to Gainsborough, relates in one of his
letters an anecdote which brings out forcibly
the artist’s love of mirth and tendency to see
the comic side of a situation. The friends had
been talking about a certain French abbe who
was afflicted with a morbid dread of laughing at
the wrong moment, and never raised the Host
at Mass without being in terror lest his infirmity
should overtake him. Gainsborough capped
this story by telling how he had himself suffered
in a similar manner when the guest of a certain
Earl who daily gathered his household together
for family prayer. “ I dared not go,” said the
artist, “for fear of laughing at the chaplain,
Sir George Beaumont, who belonged to an old
English family, and at whose table the great
portrait-painter, in spite of his usual shyness of
general society, was a frequent guest. Of this
baronet the story is told that he was fond of
dabbling in paint, and asked Sir Joshua Reynolds
to give him a hint about the mixing of colours,
to which the President of the Royal Academy
replied, “ Mix a little wax with them; but do not
tell anybody.” “ Will not that make the painting
crack ? ” asked Sir George; to which Sir Joshua
naively answered, “ All good pictures crack.”
Sir George Beaumont, who became much
attached to Gainsborough, relates in one of his
letters an anecdote which brings out forcibly
the artist’s love of mirth and tendency to see
the comic side of a situation. The friends had
been talking about a certain French abbe who
was afflicted with a morbid dread of laughing at
the wrong moment, and never raised the Host
at Mass without being in terror lest his infirmity
should overtake him. Gainsborough capped
this story by telling how he had himself suffered
in a similar manner when the guest of a certain
Earl who daily gathered his household together
for family prayer. “ I dared not go,” said the
artist, “for fear of laughing at the chaplain,