Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1973.1.17
Gallery Label:
This portrait has traditionally been identified as Mr. Clayton Jones, which is an unusual name. According to baptismal records, Clayton Jones was a Londoner, the son of one Seth Jones and Sarah Clayton, who married in October 1720 at St. Martin's Church, Outwich. Clayton Jones was baptized in December 1722 at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, and eventually married Margaret Jenks on February 6, 1745, in the same church. The subject of this portrait is clearly not twenty-two or twenty-three years old, however, and it may therefore be that the Jones's descendants mistook Seth Jones for his son Clayton, or that the subject is someone else altogether. Fortunately, there is no mistaking Gainsborough's highly distinctive Ipswich-period style, which anchors the picture firmly to the mid-1740s. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005