# Portrait of George Pitt, First Baron Rivers

- By: Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727–1788)
- Date: 1769
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Framed: 261 x 181 x 9 cm (102 3/4 x 71 1/4 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 234.3 x 154.3 cm (92 1/4 x 60 3/4 in.)
- Culture: England, 18th century
- Credit line: Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.2)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.2/1971.2_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Although George Pitt reputedly led a life of debauchery and was a cruel husband, Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait endows him with an aura of dignity and refinement. This work was painted between Pitt’s appointments as ambassador to Turin, Italy, and Madrid, Spain, but he is very much the English gentleman at home on his country estate. Gainsborough balances the deep scarlet and green facing of Pitt’s military uniform with the cool, woodland landscape painted with wide, liquid brushstrokes of mauves, grays, and silvers.