Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy RETURNS to Britain exactly 100 years after ...

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Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy is returning to Britain exactly 100 years after a curator at The Royal Academy scrawled 'au revoir' on the back as it set sale for the US.   

Gainsborough's 1770 oil on canvas will go on display at the National Gallery from tomorrow, marking an 'unprecedented' loan from the US.

The painting, which shows a boy in a blue jacket and pantaloons, was originally unveiled at London's Royal Academy in 1770. 

However, it has been on display at the Huntington Art Gallery in California, for the past century. 

Buttall owned the portrait among other artists before it was sold to dealer Joseph Duveen in 1921.

The National Gallery's then director Charles Holmes wrote

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