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Thomas Rowlandson
Discomforts of an Epicure (1787); self-portrait
Born
Thomas Rowlandson
NationalityEnglish
EducationRoyal Academy Schools

Thomas Rowlandson (13 July 1757–21 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist.

Biography edit

Early life edit

Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, London, the only son of William Rowlandson (1756–1789) and his wife, Mary. He was baptised on 23 July at St Mary Colechurch. His father was a wool and silk merchant, who was declared bankrupt in January 1759. Thomas and his younger sister, Elizabeth, were raised by their uncle, James (a Spitalfields silk weaver), and his wife, Jane. The couple had no children of their own, and when James died Jane sold the business and moved to Soho, in rented apartments at 4 Church Street (now Romilly Street).[1]

Thomas was educated at a respected establishment in Soho Square, run by a Dr Barwis. His inclination for drawing persuaded his aunt to allow him to become an art student, and in November 1772 he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. In the same month he was allowed to draw in the Duke of Richmond's sculpture gallery at Whitehall (arranged for convenience of students and at that time administered by the incorporated society of artists)[1]

Toward the end of summer 1774, he travelled to Paris, arriving there shortly after the death of Louis XV.[2] The city was the home of artists such as Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Charles Germain de Saint Aubin, and Rowlandson's later art may have been influenced by his time in the city.[3]

Early career edit

In 1775 he sent his first exhibit to the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy. Entitled Dalilah Payeth Sampson a Visit while in Prison at Gaza, although no longer extant, it was the only drawing of a controversial historical subject he ever attempted. Two years later, by 23 votes to 1, he won the silver medal of the academy, for a figure in bas-relief.[1]

Rowlandson and his aunt moved to apartments at 103 Wardour Street some time between 1775 and 1777. They moved to 50 Poland Street in Soho, where he continued to live with his aunt until her death in April 1789. He was bequeathed a substantial legacy, which he may have gambled away. Rowlandson moved frequently in the 1790s. In 1791 he lived at 52 Strand, in 1793–95 in the basement of 2 Robert Street, Adephi, and probably in the late 1790s, in rooms adjoining George Morland, near Carlton House. His final move was in 1800, to the attic of 1 James Street in the Adelphi, where he lived for the rest of his life.[1]

 
An entertainment in Vauxhall Gardens (c.1784)

Rowlandson returned to France in 1778, and seems to have visited there throughout the 1780s. Initially he had restricted himself to penwork, supplementing the occasional work with grey wash to reinforce the shadows, but from 1780 he began to use watercolour to supplement the wash. At the same time he developed his subject matter, expanding the narrative to include inter-related incidents, combining caricature with an elegant figure style. This change in style is demonstrated by two works he exhibited in 1784, Vauxhall Gardens, and The Serpentine River.[1]

With the onset of the French Revolution Rowlandson stopped travelling to France, however, in 1791–92 he was in the Low Countries and northern Germany, with a wealthy patron, Mathew Michell.[nb 1] On this tour Rowlandson created several topographical drawings of cities and towns. He composed Drawings of a Dutch packet boat, German post house, The Hague, Düsseldorf, and Juliers in Westphalia. In 1792 he created a study of the pier at Amsterdam, and he may also have created elaborate and detailed continental town views—of the place de Mer in Antwerp (1794), the Stadhuis in Amsterdam, and the Feyge Dam and part of the fish market in the same city. All three were published in 1797, and were probably created from sketches he had made in 1791–92.[1][4]

Politics edit

Unusually for a student at the Royal Academy, Rowlandson became a draughtsman, rather than a painter. His inclination was more toward the more popular side of art, influenced by caricaturists such as William Hogarth. His earliest designs were for publishers such as S. W. Fores, and art publisher Rudolph Ackermann, who offered the young artist a steady income for his satires. Rowlandson was a close friend of James Gillray, and until the end of the 1780s he produced a range of political and social caricatures such as The Village Doctor (1781), Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins (1781), or The Amputation (1783). With Britannia Roused, or the Coalition Monster destroyed (1784), he shows a half-draped female figure grasping the Whig politician Charles Fox by the ankle, and the British Prime Minister Lord North by the throat.[5]

 
The Devonshire, or the most approved manner of securing votes (1784)

Following his ridicule of the candidates for the 1784 Westminster election, he became known by the press as "the ingenious Caricaturist".[1][6] In The Devonshire, or the most approved manner of securing votes, Rowlandson showed the Duchess of Devonshire attempting to secure for Fox the vote of a butcher; one of a number of illustrations between April and May 1784 in which Rowlandson shows the Duchess working toward's Fox's candidature. His series of election caricatures were completed with The Westminster Deserter drum'd out of the regiment, in which the defeated Cecil Wray is drummed out by Fox's loyal supporter, Sam House.[7]

Later that year, Rowlandson travelled with Henry Wigstead, a painter and friend of his aunt, to the Isle of Wight possibly to see the wreck of the Royal George, which in 1782 had foundered while taking on supplies at Spithead. Rowlandson created almost 70 watercolours from drawings made on the trip.[1]

From 1798, Rudolph Ackermann kept Rowlandson in almost continuous employment producing drawings for the colour-plate books for which his company, Ackermann's Repository of Arts, became famous. These included their first major collaboration, Loyal Volunteers of London and Environs (1799), The Microcosm of London (1808—1810), in which Rowlandson was aided by the architect Augustus Pugin, In Search of the Picturesque (1812), In Search of Consolation (1820), and In Search of a Wife (1821). Rowlandson's last work for Ackermann was The History of Johnny Quae Genus (1822).[1]

Admiral Nelson was included in Admiral Nelson recruiting with his brave tars after the glorious Battle of the Nile (1798), but Rowlandson also directed his ire to the French leader, Napoleon, in a series of prints published from July to September 1808.[8]

Society edit

Many of Rowlandson's works poke fun at those members of society whom he was surrounded by. In January 1784 he published A Sketch from Nature. Similar to Hogarth's Rake's Progress, it depicts a scene of revelry, with men and women drinking punch. Money-lenders, Councillor and Client, and Bookseller and Author (1784) all have male figures as their subject, the latter poking fun at the bookseller (Walter Besant), who profits at the expense of the writer he appears with. In The Golden Apple or the Modern Paris, Rowlandson returns to the Duchess of Devonshire, who with the Duchesses of Rutland and Gordon appear with the Prince of Wales (the 'Modern Paris').[9]

The Prince of Wales makes a further appearance in one of Rowlandson's better-known works, Vauxhall Gardens, where he is seen paying particular attention to his mistress, Mary Robinson. Other members of the aristocracy are visible; Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire and her sister Lady Duncannon take centre-stage in the middle of the audience. Samuel Johnson is seated to the left, looking at his plate, while his friend Hester Thrale is nearby.[10] Oliver Goldsmith is also nearby.[citation needed]


He also produced a body of erotic prints and woodcuts, many of which would be considered pornographic today.

The same collaboration of designer, author and publisher appeared in the English Dance of Death, issued in 1814–16, one of the most admirable of Rowlandson’s series, and in the Dance of Life, 1817. Rowlandson also illustrated Smollett, Goldsmith and Sterne, and his designs will be found in The Spirit of the Public Journals (1825), The English Spy (1825), and The Humourist (1831). He died in London, after a prolonged illness, on 22 April 1827.[citation needed]


Rowlandson’s designs were usually done in outline with the reed-pen, and delicately washed with colour. They were then etched by the artist on the copper, and afterwards aquatinted—usually by a professional engraver, the impressions being finally coloured by hand. As a designer he was characterized by the utmost facility and ease of draughtsmanship, and the quality of his art suffered from this haste and over-production. He dealt less frequently with politics than his fierce contemporary, Gillray, but commonly touching, in a rather gentle spirit, the various aspects and incidents of social life. His most artistic work is to be found among the more careful drawings of his earlier period; but even among the exaggerated caricature of his later time we find hints that this master of the humorous might have attained to the beautiful had he so willed.[citation needed]

His work included a personification of the United Kingdom named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as Gillray and George Cruikshank.[citation needed]

Personality edit

Other than a few surviving documents, and the anecdotal evidence written by his friends, little is known about Rowlandson's life beyond his artistic output. Author James Sherry wrote that Rowlandson "had the reputation of being something of a sensualist", and was a "congenial friend and an enthusiastic carouser".[11] In Henry Angelo's Memoirs (1830), the author described Rowlandson as a "prankish youth", who once used a pea-shooter to disturb a female model, a joke for which he was almost expelled from the Royal Academy.[12]

Style edit

Rowlandson early style was heavily influenced by the work of John Hamilton Mortimer. His earliest dated drawing, inscribed by him "A Bench of Artists Sketched at the Royal Academy in the Year 1776",

Sherry (1978) compares anecdotal evidence about Rowlandson's personality with his output. For Sherry, his artwork conveys a "lack of emotional impact", which "is not to say that Rowlandson's drawings and watercolors are without aesthetic effect ... Rowlandson's art represents a rather pure example of the way an aesthetic effect can completely displace our 'normal' human responses." Sherry is also critical of Rowlandson's portraiture, and his satirical pieces, which in his opinion compare poorly to those of his contemporary, James Gillray.[13]

The 20th-century author Selwyn Brinton described Rowlandson's art as "the luxuriant and living growth of Thomas Rowlandson's pencil, recreating for us the features of an age that was, like himself, vigorous, buoyant, and expansive".[14] ...and "the last and in some ways the greatest of the caricaturists whose work illustrates the 18th century".[15]

References edit

Footnotes
  1. ^ Michell was one of Rowlandson's most important patrons. He was a partner in a banking firm on The Strand until 1799, and lived near Rowlandson, who was a regular guest at his country homes. The two were travelling companions, mostly in the west country. On his death in 1818, Michell owned more than 550 of Rowlandson's drawings.[1]
Notes
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hayes, John (2008) [2004], "Rowlandson, Thomas (1757–1827)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, hosted at oxforddnb.com, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24221, retrieved 2009-12-23
  2. ^ Angelo 1830, p. 236
  3. ^ Brinton 1904, pp. 76–77
  4. ^ Angelo 1830, p. 239
  5. ^ Brinton 1904, pp. 78–79
  6. ^ Brinton 1904, pp. 78–79
  7. ^ Brinton 1904, pp. 79–81
  8. ^ Brinton 1904, p. 82
  9. ^ Brinton 1904, p. 84
  10. ^ Brinton 1904, p. 85
  11. ^ Sherry 1978, p. 457
  12. ^ Angelo 1830, p. 262
  13. ^ Sherry 1978, pp. 458–459
  14. ^ Brinton 1904, p. 7
  15. ^ Brinton 1904, p. 74
Bibliography

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Rowlandson.
  • Lewis Walpole Collection Yale
  • Chris Beetles
  • Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Mary Dorothy George. Vol VI 1938, Vol VII, 1942 VOL VIII 1947, VOL IX 1949
  • Dictionary of British Cartoonists and caricaturists 1730–1980 Bryant and Heneage, Scolar Press 1994


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