“THE BLUE BOY” IS REINSTALLED
AFTER MAJOR CONSERVATION PROJECT
While the Huntington Art Gallery has not yet reopened due to COVID-19,
Gainsborough’s famous masterpiece is back on the wall, luminous and awaiting visitors
Side-by-side comparison of Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy.
Pre-conservation (left), post-conservation (right). Photo: Christina Milton O’Connell.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
SAN MARINO, Calif.—One of the most famous works at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, The Blue Boy (ca. 1770) by Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), has been reinstalled in the Thornton Portrait Gallery and will be on view for visitors when the Huntington Art Gallery is allowed to reopen. The painting was originally scheduled for installation in March 2020 but was delayed due to mandatory COVID-related museum closures. Now, when visitors are allowed to return, they will see a masterpiece resplendent after an extensive 18-month initiative to analyze, conserve, and restore the work. Minute shades of color, fine brushstroke textures, and nuanced details of the famous figure of a young man in a blue satin costume, as well as the landscape in which he stands, are once again legible and closer to what Gainsborough intended.
