Why did Thomas Gainsborough go to London when he was 13?

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Thomas Gainsborough went to London at the age of 13 because he persuaded his father to send him there to study art, based on the promise he had already shown in landscape painting.1

Once in London, he worked as an assistant to the French painter and engraver Hubert Gravelot. Through this apprenticeship, Gainsborough was introduced to the French Rococo idiom, which significantly influenced the development of his artistic style.1