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THOMAS ROWLANDSON (1757-1827)
Thomas Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London, on 14 July 1757. In consequence of the bankruptcy of his father, a merchant in wool and silk, he was raised by an aunt and uncle. He was educated at Dr Barrow’s School and studied art from the age of sixteen, first in Paris and then at the Royal Academy Schools. Between 1775 and 1787, he exhibited both subject pictures and caricatures, in pen and wash, at the Royal Academy, winning the silver medal in 1777 and making his name seven years later with the ambitious Vauxhall Gardens. Throughout the seventeen-eighties he was engaged in political and social caricature, but his versatility enabled him to work extensively as a book illustrator, initially on the novels of Smollett and Fielding (1791-1805), and later on volumes dependent on their visual content. Employed by the publisher Ackermann from 1798, he depicted the Miseries of Human Life (1808) and added figures to Augustus Pugin’s architectural settings for The Microcosm of London (1808-11). He received the ideal commission in 1812 when asked to collaborate with William Combe on Tours of Dr Syntax (1812-21); a seasoned traveller, with an extensive knowledge of Britain and the Continent, Rowlandson was well-qualified to parody the vagaries of the Picturesque landscape artist. He frequently produced drawings after the Old Masters, and his own landscape style was an adaptation of that of Thomas Gainsborough. During the eighteen-twenties, the work of the Italian Renaissance artist, Giovanni della Porta, inspired him to return to caricature, the art that had made his name, and produce a number of comparative anatomy studies. He became seriously ill in 1825 and died on 21 April 1827.
For further information, see: Joseph Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist, London: Chatto and Windus, 1880; John Hayes, Rowlandson: Watercolours and Drawings, London: Phaidon, 1972; Ronald Paulson, Rowlandson: A New Interpretation, London: Studio Vista, 1972
