John Loughborough Pearson

Inscriptionback to top

Inscr. in black paint lower left: ‘W.W.Ouless’ [with long first ‘s’].
Formerly on back of canvas behind central stretcher, fragmentary inscr.: ‘2 1/2 inches to Right (in front of ?face)’; other indistinct inscr. disappeared when dust removed during conservation.

This portraitback to top

Sitter and artist may have first met through the art school attached to St Peter’s Vauxhall, built 1860–61 to Pearson’s design, where Ouless studied around 1864. Ouless joined Pearson as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1877, and as RA in 1881. Around 1880 Ouless commissioned Pearson to design his studio at 12 Bryanston Square. [1] This portrait was perhaps prompted by Pearson’s fame as architect of the new cathedral at Truro, consecrated in November 1887, a drawing of which was exhibited at the RA in 1889 (1631), the same year as Ouless’s portrait. At this date Pearson had also just completed his designs for Brisbane Cathedral.

Described by The Times’s critic as ‘among the most interesting of the numerous contributions by this distinguished artist [Ouless]’ at the 1889 RA exhibition, [2] the present work was thought ‘a speaking likeness’, and subsequently retained by the sitter’s family. [3] According to Anthony Quiney, the portrait ‘shows a man at once authoritative and gentle’ [4] and also conveys Pearson’s ‘genial character and gentle, expressive eyes, smiling above a full beard and moustache’. [5] Ouless’s presentation, isolating Pearson’s head and hand, favours the ‘authoritative’ over the ‘gentle’, evoking a patriarchal, quasi-Gothic figure of somewhat stern aspect. John Pettie’s depiction of Pearson from the same decade (see ‘All known portraits, 1887’) offers a similar portrayal, with even bushier eyebrows.

Walter William Ouless was ‘one of the most trustworthy portrait painters of the day, sure of getting a good and sympathetic likeness with a high degree of technical skill’. [6] He was also prolific, exhibiting 230 portraits at the RA over an extended career. Six other works by him are in the National Portrait Gallery collection, including portraits of Thomas Hardy (NPG 2181) and Sir George Scharf (NPG 985). Alongside NPG 6176, seven other portraits by Ouless were shown at the RA in 1889 including one of fellow RA Thomas Sidney Cooper.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) Quiney 1979, p.271.
2) The Times, 22 May 1889, p.15.
3) Quiney 1979, p.66; no reference is given for the critical assessment, which may have been an oral transmission.
4) Quiney 1979, p.10.
5) Waterhouse 2004. A list here, under ‘Likenesses’, gives the mistaken impression that two versions of Ouless’s portrait exist, the present work and another in a private collection, but these are the same painting; see letter from Brian Morgan (Pearson’s great-grandson) to John Hayes, 6 Jan. 1992, NPG RP 6176, stating that NPG 6176 formed the frontispiece to Quiney 1979 and is ‘the only known picture of him [sic]’. Pettie’s portrait was evidently then unknown to Mr Morgan.
6) Marriott 2004.

Physical descriptionback to top

Half-length to left, half-profile to left, with grey/blue eyes, white hair and beard, wearing black coat, white shirt, red-brown tie, left hand holding ?spectacles.

Conservationback to top

Conserved, 1998.

Provenanceback to top

With sitter and son, to sitter’s granddaughter Marion Morgan and great-grandson Brian Morgan, from whom purchased 1992.

Exhibitionsback to top

Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 1889 (128).

Reproductionsback to top

Illustrated London News, 18 December 1897, p.877.

Magazine of Art, 1898, p.236.

Pall Mall Magazine, 1898, p.92.

Quiney 1979, frontispiece.

View all known portraits for John Loughborough Pearson