By Thomas Rowlandson
A BALL AT THE HACKNEY ASSEMBLY ROOMS
(Remember the Graces!)
But here I would also point out that not only was our caricaturist an unequalled illustrator of lovely woman (and as such makes us often regret that the becoming mob cap has disappeared from use), but also a magnificent landscape artist. I came to notice this especially last year in a very interesting exhibition of Rowlandson's drawings at the Leicester Gallery in London. "A Country Fête," a "Village Scene with Bridge," and the "Promenade on Richmond Hill," were good examples of his delightful handling of English landscape. The last of these formed part of a very interesting set of the artist's original drawings, which were not exhibited, but which I was able to study by kind permission. "Greenwich Park" was among these drawings, with merrymakers racing and tumbling down the hill, and a delicious perspective of the park and hospital; a "Review of Guards in Hyde Park," where, upon the soldiers firing, two of the spectators' horses have bolted into the crowd; the charming drawing in pencil and colour work of two girls called "The Sirens;" rustic scenes such as "Eel Pie Island at Richmond," "Playing Quoits," and a "Rustic Maid Crossing a Stile," to her sweetheart's admiration; such echoes too of war as the crowd cheering the great battleships at Portsmouth, or the print of "Invaders Repulsed," where British troops are seen driving out the French invaders.
Drawn most delicately in pencil with a wash of pure colour, these drawings bring us nearer to the feeling of the artist than even his prints, and it was interesting to compare "Greenwich Hill" in the print and drawing, and to see how much the transcript had lost. Yet seen by themselves the prints were interesting and characteristic. "A Visit to the Uncle" and "to the Aunt," "Travelling in France, 1790"—a signed work showing a large clumsy diligence, which the artist is sketching—"Angelo's Fencing Room," full of contemporary portraits, "The Pleasure of the Country," where fine ladies struggling through the mud find a litter of piglets rushing in among their skirts, were among the best of these, while a print of "Girls Dressing for the Masquerade," and the "Dutch Academy," with a fat model posing before solid Dutchmen, were among those not infrequent prints of our artist whose satire comes near—if not over—the confines of good taste.
By Thomas Rowlandson
A THEATRICAL CANDIDATE
Some clever prints of Dr. Syntax himself were here—a subject this which, published by Ackermann under the title of a "Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque" in 1809, was republished in 1812, and occupied the artist in various developments during his later life. To the same period of Rowlandson's career belonged "The Microcosm of London" (1808), "A Mad Dog in a Coffee House" (1809), and "In a Dining Room" (1809), the print called "Exhibition Stare-case, Somerset House" (1811)—where the visitors of both sexes are tumbling headlong downstairs, the extraordinary cleverness of drawing scarcely compensating for the doubtful taste of the subject; and later followed "The World in Miniature" (1816), "Richardson's Show," "The English Dance of Death" (1814-16), and "Dance of Life" (1817), which leads on to the later "Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of Consolation" (1820), and (1821) "In search of a Wife." Although Fores of Piccadilly seems to have published many of our artist's prints during the last years of the eighteenth century, throughout his whole career Rudolph Ackermann remained his constant friend; to the suggestion of this latter was due the idea of a monthly publication, which gave Rowlandson regular employment in his later years, and resulted in the series of prints which I have just detailed, among which the quaint, angular form of Dr. Syntax, with his thin legs, black coat and breeches, and hooked nose, claims a prominent place.
These subjects lead us already into the early nineteenth century, and, as doing so, fall outside our present limit; but Rowlandson himself belongs in his art, as much as Bunbury or Gillray, to the earlier age. An artist of extraordinary genius, we have it on record that two successive Presidents of the Academy in his day, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West, in expressing their admiration of his drawings, added their opinion that, had he chosen a higher branch of art, he might have stood in the forefront of English contemporary painting. Instead of this he preferred to devote his genius and his best years to caricature, and in doing so, has bequeathed to us a rich and most precious heritage.
He was happy in his friendships. James Gillray was well known to him; George Morland, that brilliant artist with whom he had so much in common, Henry Angelo, whom he loved to depict among his pupils of the foil ("Angelo's Fencing Room" and "Signora Cigali Fencing at Angelo's"), Bannister, and Ackermann the art publisher were among his intimates. He was less happy in the conduct of his life. Extravagance and carelessness were combined with a passion for gambling which made him a frequent figure in the fashionable playhouses of London; and these habits placed the fortune, which should have been his by industry and inheritance, beyond his reach. The legacy of £7000 bequeathed him by his French aunt, who had treated him so generously in his student days, was speedily dissipated in this way. Indeed, but for the frequent advice and assistance of his friend and publisher, Rudolph Ackermann, he might have found himself in serious difficulties; and the story runs that on one occasion he sat for thirty-six hours at the cards, and that on another, after losing all he had, he sat down coolly to his work and (raising that facile pencil of his) said, "Here is my resource." Thus it was that, after many years of fertile labour, he died a poor man in lodgings at the Adelphi, on the 22nd of April, 1827. His faithful friends of earlier days, Henry Angelo, Bannister, and Rudolph Ackermann, followed to his grave the last great caricaturist of the bygone century.
By Thomas Rowlandson
OLD JOSEPH NOLLEKENS AND HIS VENUS