Rought, William (SCC Newsletter August 2002)

William Rought

AN OXFORD ARTIST.

His background. William Rought worked only in Oxford and his sitters were academics, undergraduates and local townsfolk. His main trades were house painting and wood turning. His business premises were in the Cornmarket. As Mrs. McKechnie states it is not known why he took to painting profiles. Most of his works can be dated to the period 1812-15. It is known that he did not paint after 1833 but continued his other trades until his retirement in 1851. He died the next year at the age of seventy-seven. He was married with a family - he was made a freeman of Oxford as was his son & grandson after him.

His work & style. Rought had his own distinctive style, which is easy to recognise without a backing label. He painted bust-lengths in dense black on convex glass (sometimes very convex). Most of these were of men - backed with paper and housed in turned wood frames. It is likely that Rought made his own frames. His work has some distinct characteristics - these are best illustrated by using labelled examples. Above are photographed two such works. On the left is an enlarged academic with his mortar-board housed in a turned wood frame. He is 3" in height. On the right is a gent - also greatly enlarged. He is 2¾" in height and housed in a papier mache frame (? re-framed). Both were sold at the Andrew Ransford Sale on 24.11.1999 at Bonhams. In both cases note the 'treatment’ of the stock and shirt frills and the shading at the back of the neck. Also note the bust-line termination, the sweep of the eyelash & the hair tufts of the gent on the right. The costume details are well painted. Mrs. McKechnie suggests that Rought used a needle for his stocks but it is not easy to see this in all examples - it looks like fine brushwork

W. ROUGHT page 2.

to me! On this page I have enlarged even more the head and neck of the gent on the previous page. A little distortion results but you will be able to see clearly the style details I have mentioned. I think it is an attractive style as far as it goes. The young man on the right is very similar to his companion but he is very much smaller! He is only 1½" high. He is housed in a very nice 'dinky' turned wood frame. On his stock it is possible to see Rought's use of the needle (i.e. near his bow). He has the characteristic short comma - like strokes outside the main body to show his hair. Sometimes Rought painted gents with queues/pigtails - these are usually small and stingy. Bust-line terminations do not vary much but can be somewhat shallow. I have photocopied below three further silhouettes by Rought - note the style of the lady.

W. ROUGHT page 3.

Above on the left is the photocopy of a second lady - both are reproduced from Mrs. McKechnie's Book. The first lady is Mrs. Ann Tonque (widow of Alderman Tonque of Oxford) page 605 illus. 1187. The lady above is Mrs. Arthur Annesley of Bletchington Park, Oxfordshire - on the same page illus.1188. Both are painted in a plain black style with little or no transparency. It seems that Mr. Rought did not paint many women and all those recorded to date have been painted in the style of these two ladies. The young lady in the little red case photographed above on the right. I am sure that she is painted by Mr. Rought. Her hair has the 'spikey' Rought 'treatment' and she has a long sweeping eyelash (? a little difficult to see in the photo). Her dress as you will see is. painted in transparency in the same style as the stocks of Rought's men. I do not think a needle has been used on her dress. The fact that she is a young woman in a low-cut dress may have led Rought to paint her in this way. Presumably if my attribution is correct there will be other similar examples about.

There is one recorded silhouette painted on paper said to be by Mr. Rought. Although strangely his name has been spelt WROUGHT with the W crossed out with a pen! On the back there is a small rectangular label "W. rought, Profile Painter, Cornmarket, Oxford". It is painted in a style that is very similar in many ways to Rought's work on glass, but the bust-length is not shallow - it is almost three-quarter length. Gum arabic has been used for costume and ear detail. I am not entirely convinced that it is by Mr. Rought! It is odd that he used a completely different label for this work and he made a spelling mistake with his name (? the printer's error). On the other hand it is unlikely that two artists of the same name would be working in the Cornmarket. From the extant silhouettes by Rought it is clear that he was happier painting on the back of convex glass.

Mrs. McKechnie refers to this silhouette in Section Two of her Book (artists who painted on paper or card) page 436 as well as in Section Three (artists who painted on glass) when mentioning Rought's labels page 567. The silhouette is owned by a Member of the S.C.C. so I have been able to examine it closely. I will not discuss in this article the conversation piece of George III, Queen Charlotte and their six daughters, which is in the Royal Collection and attributed to W, Rought. I think its attribution is to be questioned - so I will make this the subject of a further article in due course!

W. ROUGHT page 4

Also Mr. Rought painted composite family pieces. Above I have photographed one of the Drake Family. This is in the Andrew Collection at Stonor Park and was previously part of the Wellesley Collection. It is illustrated in the book "One Hundred Silhouette Portraits" plate XXXV from the Collection. The size of the work is 3½" by 5¾” so the individual silhouettes are very small - the size for rings & other jewellery. There is no record that Rought painted jewellery pieces. The Drake Family are well painted and it is an attractive work. Mr. Desmond Coke mentions in his book "The Art of Silhouette" that he once possessed a "quintette" on glass of a father, mother and three children, which he considered was painted by Rought "just alter 1800". He stated that it was painted on "bulging glass" so he decided to sell it to Mr. Wellesley as he was worried about the servants damaging the glass! I do not know the whereabouts of this work. Recently some silhouettes by Rought appeared in a country sale -these were housed in two multiple frames (6 in each frame - 1 was missing and had been replaced by a Hubard scholar!) All the silhouettes were of men similar to those I have illustrated at the beginning of this article. As the frames were made of papier mache I suspect all had been re-framed at some point to make wall display a little easier! The scholar on the right above is for good measure and is photocopied from Arthur Maynes "British Profile Miniaturiste" plate 44.

W. ROUGHT page 5.

His labels. Above are photographs of Rought's two 'main' labels. The labels are the same in design and wording but different in colour - blue is label 1 & red is label 2. Label 1 is from a silhouette in the Andrew Collection - not illustrated in this article. Label 2 is from the scholar photographed on page 1 of this article. I do not know which label came first or whether the different colours were to add variety. Rought did not advertise his work in the local papers or elsewhere so no doubt relied on his labels to 'attract' the friends and relatives of satisfied customers! On these labels he referred to one minute sittings and charges from 5s. to 10s.6d. The design of his label is interesting and as Desmond Coke states “it would not have shamed Bartalozzi! Mrs. McKechnie in her Book makes some comparison with the label of I. (or J.) Berry - Berry is a very rare artist and there is no evidence that the two artists copied each other's labels.

I like W. Rought's work even if it may be described as a little stilted and predictable. The very black paint he used is effective - so is his 'treatment of men's stocks and shirt frills. His works look especially good in his turned wood frames - especially those that are painted in a half-size. His works seem to have weathered well over the years with little loss of paint.