A youth in shimmering blue satin stands full-length against a stormy landscape. His costume was more than a century out of date: Gainsborough dressed him as a figure from Van Dyck's portraits. Long said to be Jonathan Buttall, a merchant's son, the sitter may instead be the painter's nephew Gainsborough Dupont. Before it left for California in 1922, 90,000 people saw it at the National Gallery in London.
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At lower right, Gainsborough painted out a dog that once sat at the boy's feet. An X-ray revealed it in 1994, and infrared imaging shows the foliage he used to hide it.
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Compared by a vision model
