Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville

Thomas Gainsborough

National Gallery of Art

This painting is a portrait of a man standing, seen from the knees up, his torso and head slightly turned to the left. The man has pale skin and gray hair styled back from his face and forming curls around his ears, and he has a sharp nose, thick gray eyebrows, and pink lips set in a neutral expression. He wears a dark blue coat with gold buttons, a pale-yellow waistcoat, and a frilly white cravat at his neck, with more white frills at his cuffs. His trousers are tan. His left arm is bent, resting on a tall rock formation on the right. His left hand is gloved and holds the other yellow glove. His bare right hand holds a thin brown cane. The background features loose leaf shapes in warm autumnal colors, with the gray-brown trunk of a tree visible in the top left and glimpses of a purple and gray sky on the left side. The area behind his head is brown.