Exhibition at Lewis Walpole Library surveys life and work of painter Thomas Patch through Dec. 15

“Caricatures, Campagna, and Connoisseurs: Thomas Patch and the British Grand Tour in Eighteenth-Century Italy” is on view in the exhibition gallery at the Lewis Walpole Library through Monday, Dec. 15, 2025.

This exhibition explores many aspects of the life and work of artist Thomas Patch (1725–1782), one of the first scholars of early Renaissance art. Patch was a landscape painter, experimental printmaker, and a dealer of antiquities and Old Master paintings. “Caricatures, Campagna, and Connoisseurs” highlights his varied associations with the British community of diplomats, tourists, artists, and collectors in Italy. 

Curator Hugh Belsey was the former curator of Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury, England. During his 23-year tenure, he formed one of the largest collections of the drawings and oil paintings of Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788).

A graduate of the universities of Manchester and Birmingham, Belsey has lectured in America, Australia, Britain, and Europe. His award-winning catalogue of Gainsborough portraits was published by Yale University Press in 2019.

To learn more, download the exhibition brochure for “Caricatures, Campagna, and Connoisseurs” or view the online exhibition.

Admission is free, and the exhibition gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 2 to 4:30 pm or at other times by appointment.  

—Story and photos by Monica Reed