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Gainsborough, renowned for his landscapes, was also a portrait painter of the period. His best-known work is "The Blue Boy," which is part of the collection at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. Christie's holds the world auction record for a work by Gainsborough, set in April 2008 with the sale of "A Wooded Landscape" for $5.7 million.

Campbell had a brief and stormy tenure as royal governor of the South Carolina colony. Married to a South Carolinian, Campbell became governor in June 1775, six months after patriot leaders established a provincial congress in the colony to act independently of British rule.

Campbell tried to turn the backcountry settlers against the wealthy plantation owners along the coast, but his position quickly became untenable. He and his family were forced to flee Charleston on a British ship in September 1775.

Campbell returned the next year with a British fleet commanded by Sir Peter Parker that tried to capture Charleston in June 1776, just days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. The invasion fleet was repulsed by a small American force under Col. William Moultrie manning a palmetto log fort on Sullivans Island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor.

The palmetto tree, recalling the victory, is now on the South Carolina state flag.

Historians say Campbell was wounded in the battle and returned to England. Gainsborough painted him in mid-late 1770s, shortly before Campbell died from complications from the injury.

Ben Hall, director of Old Masters & 19th Century Art at Christie's New York, says the portrait was last owned by a collector in England whose estate is putting it up for auction and last exhibited it in the 1970s. Prior to that, the piece belonged to one of Campbell's descendants, who auctioned the painting in the 1950s.

Hall says Campbell's portrait may garner interest among collectors in South Carolina and England, as well as Canada, where Campbell served as governor of Nova Scotia before his tenure in the United States.

The portrait is going on the auction block in London, but Hall says it'd be nice to see Campbell's likeness return to South Carolina, where the home he and his family inhabited still stands.

"It would be lovely to see it return home," Hall said. "I'm not sure Lord William Campbell was probably the most popular figure in Charleston in the 1770s, but nevertheless it's an important piece of Charleston's history."

LONDON — A spokesman for British singer and TV personality Cheryl Cole says she is being treated in a London hospital for malaria.

Publicist Sundraj Sreenivasan said Tuesday the 27-year-old performer will have to cancel all work commitments for the next week. Cole reportedly recently returned from a trip to Tanzania.

Britain's tabloids reported that Cole, a judge along with Simon Cowell on the British reality talent show "The X Factor," collapsed during a photoshoot for her album on Saturday.

The Sun newspaper said Tuesday that she had been in the hospital for two days, but her spokesman declined to offer further details.

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