British artist's suppliers, 1650-1950 - R (Rob-Row)
A selective directory, to be revised and expanded regulary, 1st edition June 2006, 2nd edition May 2008 (*entry revised, **new entry).
Contributions are welcome, to Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.
Resources and bibliography Individual artists
Artists using Roberson's materials, 1840-1910: Roberson's supports were used by numerous artists, as the surviving Roberson ledgers testify (see Woodcock 1997). Examples of Roberson's labels and stamps are reproduced by Leach 1973 and Katlan 1992 pp.464-6. Staff at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, have used the Roberson Archive to establish the dates of various canvases in the Walker collection and that at Sudley House (see Morris 1996; several of the Walker paintings listed below are recorded as frame labels). Similarly, staff at Tate have used the Archive in research on Pre-Raphaelite painting techniques (see Townsend 2004), and some of the examples given below depend on entries in the Roberson ledgers, rather than on marked canvases; the supply of colours by Roberson to Charles Allston Collins, James Collinson, William Holman Hunt, John Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti has been documented by Leslie Carlyle (Townsend 2004 pp.39-49).
The relationship between Roberson and four significant artists working in the second half of the 19th century has begun to be explored in detail: William Holman Hunt, Lord Leighton, William Powell Frith and Edward Burne-Jones.
William Holman Hunt had an account with Roberson 1850-1906, which has been published for the years 1895-1900 (Woodcock 1997 pp.xi-xiii). He also entered into correspondence with the business concerning the quality of individual colours (Carlyle 2001 pp.271, 461-2). Examples of his works on Roberson supports include The Eve of St Agnes, 1847-57 (Walker Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988), Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus, 1850-1 (Birmingham Museum & Gallery, see Townsend 2004 p.113), The Hireling Shepherd, 1851-2 (Manchester City Art Gallery, see Townsend 2004 p.140), The Light of the World, 1851-3 (Keeble College, Oxford, see Townsend 2004 p.148), Our English Coasts, 1852 (Tate, see Townsend 2004 p.158), The Awakening Conscience, 1853 (Tate, see Townsend 2004 p.174), and May Morning on Magdalen Tower, 1890 (Walker Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988). He used a dilute Copal preparation by Roberson as a medium until 1853 (The Portfolio 1875 p.45). See also Melissa R. Katz, 'Holman Hunt on Himself: Textual Evidence in Aid of Technical Analysis', in Erma Hermens (ed.), Looking Through Paintings, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol.11, 1998, pp.415-44.
Likewise, Lord Leighton held an account from 1860 until his death in 1886 and his relationship with Roberson's has been examined by Sally Woodcock, who published an extract from his account for the purchase of canvas, probably for Flaming June, November 1894 (Woodcock 1996). Examples of his works on marked canvases include Elijah in the Wilderness, 1877-8, Elegy, 1888, and Perseus and Andromeda, 1891 (all Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Psamathe, 1879-80, and Fatidica, exh.1894 (both Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Morris 1994).
Roberson advertised in The Year's Art (1887-1900), quoting a letter from William Powell Frith, 28 September 1896, on the perfect state of preservation of his picture, The Derby Day, 1858 (Tate). A marked canvas is Frith's New Shoes, 1860 (Christie's 23 November 2005 lot 124). Frith held an account with Roberson for 59 years from 1850 until his death in 1909 (Woodcock 1997) and the canvases for such set pieces as Ramsgate Sands, 1856 (Royal Collection), The Derby Day, 1858 (Tate), The Railway Station, 1862 (Royal Holloway College) and The Marriage of the Prince of Wales, 1865 (Royal Collection) were all ordered from him, as were a wide range of artists' materials (Sally Woodcock, ' "Very efficient as a painter": the painting practice of William Powell Frith', in Mark Bills and Vivien Knight (eds.), William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age, 2006, pp.145-56).
Edward Burne-Jones, followed by his executors, had an account with Roberson from 1857 to 1900 (Woodcock 1997); this has been analysed and examined by Eleanor Beyer (Eleanor Beyer, An Examination of the Painting Techniques of G.F. Watts and Edward Burne-Jones set in the context of the techniques of the Pre-Raphaelites, MA thesis, University College London, 2004). Examples of his works on marked canvases or stretchers include The Beguiling of Merlin, 1874, The Annunciation, 1879, The Tree of Forgiveness, 1882 (all Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Morris 1994).
Marked supports found on the works of other artists from the 1840s and subsequently include Thomas Sully's Elizabeth Cook, 1839 (Yale University Art Gallery, repr. Katlan 1992 p.466; however, the address 99 Long Acre would suggest a date after 1853), Alfred Walter Williams's Eel Bucks at Goring, 1844? (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Frederick Richard Say's 1st Earl of Ellenborough, c.1845, and 5th Duke of Newcastle, 1848 (both National Portrait Gallery), and Alfred Stevens's Study for Parmigianino painting The Vision of St Jerome, 1840s? and Six paintings for the Crystal Palace, 1850s (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996).
From the 1850s and subsequently, John Millais's Ophelia, 1851-2 (Tate, see Hackney 1999 p.76, Townsend 2004 p.135, and http://www.tate.org.uk/ophelia/materials_frame.htm , The Prescribed Royalist 1651, 1852-3 (Lord Lloyd-Webber, see Townsend 2004 p.160), The Order of Release 1746, 1852-3 (Tate, see Townsend 2004 p.171), My Second Sermon, 1864 (Birmingham Museum & Gallery, repr. Cobbe 1976 p.86, Katlan 1992 p.287), and Benjamin Disraeli, 1881 (National Portrait Gallery), Thomas Sidney Cooper's An Evening Scene, 1852 (Wallace Collection, see Ingamells 1985), Henry Le Jeune's Contemplation, panel stamped with address as 51 Long Acre, indicating a panel date before 1855, and Rush Gatherers, exh.1852 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), John Frederick Herring's Still life of dead birds, fruit, vegetables, 1852 (Christie's 22 November 2006 lot 104), A farmer's hack and greyhounds, 1854 (Christie's 22 November 2006 lot 105, label repr. in catalogue), One of the Scots Greys, 1855, address 51 Long Acre (Christie's 22 November 2006 lot 107) and A Grey and a Dark Bay, drinking at a Trough, 1855, address 99 Long Acre (Christie's 22 November 2006 lot 108), William Sydney Mount's Coming to the Point, 1854 (New York Historical Society, see Katlan 1987 p.299), Frederick Edwin Church's Cotopaxi, 1855 (National Museum of American Art, see Katlan 1987 p.292), James Smetham's Counting the Cost, exh.1855 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), John Frederick Lewis's A Syrian Sheet, 1856 (Fitzwilliam Museum), William Jacob Hays's Terrier's Head, 1859 (New York Historical Society, see Katlan 1987 p.306, repr. Katlan 1992 p.464), Henry Wallis's A Coast Scene, Sunset, Seaford, late 1850s (Walker Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988) and his Thomas Love Peacock, 1858 (National Portrait Gallery). In 1855 Rossetti wrote to Ford Madox Brown referring to visiting Roberson's (Fredeman 2002 vol.2 p.31).
From the 1860s, F.R. Pickersgill's Prospero and Miranda, early 1860s (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), George Healy's Col. Albert Brochett, 1861 (National Museum of American Art, see Katlan 1987 p.293), Edward Lear's Bethlehem, 1861 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Edward Matthew Ward's Antechamber at Whitehall during the Dying Moments of Charles II, exh.1861 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Heinrich Schiött's John Delane, 1862 (National Portrait Gallery), Mary Newton's Self-portrait, exh.1863 (National Portrait Gallery), Frederick Sandys's Mrs Jane Lewis, 1864 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see Elzea 2001 pp.181, 340) and Mrs Anne Susannah Barstow, 1868-9 (Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, see Elzea 2001 pp.192, 340), Ford Madox Brown's The Coat of Many Colours, 1866 (Walker Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988), Thomas Creswick and Richard Ansdell's Forest Glade with Deer, 1869 or before (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Thomas Creswick's Landscape, Morning (Crossing the Stream), 1869 or before (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), George Clayton Eaton's Alfred Stephens in his Library, late 1860s or early 1870s (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996).
From the 1870s and subsequently, Hugh Carter's Sir Francis Ronalds, c.1870 (National Portrait Gallery), Charles West Cope's Yes or No?, 1872 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Arthur Hughes's 'As You Like It', 1872-3 (Walker Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988), Thomas Faed's Free From Care, 1878 (Sudley, Liverpool, see Bennett 1971). Roberson's Medium was used by Philip H. Calderon (The Portfolio 1875 p.15, listing nine paintings including The Young Lord Hamlet and A Moonlight Serenade) and by John Gilbert as a thick medium for oil painting (The Portfolio 1876 p.15). Edward Armitage used Roberson's deep yellow madder (The Portfolio 1875 p.63).
From the 1880s, Charles Gregory's Weal and Woe, 1880 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Henry Holiday's Dante and Beatrice, exh.1883 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Philip Morris's Quite Ready, exh.1884 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Morris 1994), John Gilbert's The Slain Dragon, 1885, and Landscape with Gypsy Encampment, 1888 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), J.M. Strudwick's Circe and Scylla, exh.1886, Love's Palace, 1893, and St Cecilia, 1896 (Sudley, see Morris 1996), Richard Beavis's Goats: Outskirts of Cadiz, by 1888 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996). John Brett used some Roberson canvases in the mid-1880s (Lowry 2001 p.38). Frank Holl's biographer described Roberson as his colourman (A.M. Reynolds, The Life and Work of Frank Holl, 1912, p.251); examples include Francis Holl and Sir W.S. Gilbert, 1886 (both National Portrait Gallery).
From the 1890s and subsequently, Luke Fildes's The Doctor, 1890-91 (Tate, see Completing the Picture 1982 pp.65-8, repr.), Sydney P. Hall's Gladstone reading the Lesson in Hawarden Church, 1892 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Morris 1994), Evelyn de Morgan's Life and Thought emerging from the Tomb, 1893 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), and William De Morgan, 1909 (loan to National Portrait Gallery), John Swan's Orpheus, 1896 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Morris 1994), John Collier's Sir Edward Inglefield, 1897 (National Portrait Gallery), Joseph Southall's Sigismonda Drinking the Poison, 1897, and Beauty Receiving the White Rose from her Father, 1898-9 (both Birmingham Museum & Gallery, see Dunkerton 1980 p.19). John Singer Sargent used sketchbooks supplied by Roberson, c.1890, c.1910 (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, see Stewart 2000 pp.24, 26).
From the 1900s, Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Among the Ruins, 1902 (Sotheby's 14 December 2006 lot 121) and his Love's Missile, 1909 (Sotheby's 14 December 2006 lot 128), John Bacon's The Homage-Giving, 1903 (National Portrait Gallery), Arthur Cope's Viscount Knutsford, 1906 (National Portrait Gallery).
C. Roberson & Co Ltd, from 1907: By the First World War the company was in relative decline. It relocated to Camden Town from 25 March 1937 (The Artist March 1937, advertisement) and was obliged to close its West End branch in or before March 1940 (The Artist March 1940, advertisement). The business remained in the family until the 1970s, when sold to a Dutch firm, going into liquidation in 1987 (London Gazette 29 June 1987). The name was bought by the owner of Cornelissen (qv), who continues to use it for a small range of high-quality materials (Woodcock 1995). 'It now thrives as a trade-only supplier supplying many of the products for which the company was famous in the past', trading as Roberson & Co, website at www.robco.co.uk. It is one of three historic businesses listed (as at February 2005) in the Companies House register as incorporated at 105 Great Russell St, London WC1B 3RY: Brodie & Middleton Ltd, incorporated 1945, L. Cornelissen and Son Ltd, incorporated 1980, and C. Roberson & Co Ltd, incorporated 1985.
Works on Roberson supports from the 1910s include Philip de László's Sir George Henschel, 1917 (National Portrait Gallery), John Arnesby Brown's In June, exh.1917, and Tom Mostyn's Silver and Gold, 1918 (both Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Morris 1994), and Ambrose McEvoy's Sir John Alcock, 1919 (National Portrait Gallery). The business advertised 'Roberson's Matt Colours Prepared with Parris' Marble Medium. The most suitable for ceiling or mural paintings' (The Year's Art 1913).
From the 1920s and 1930s, Oswald Birley's Glyn Philpot, 1920, Earl of Birkenhead, 1932, and Viscount Camrose, c.1933 (all National Portrait Gallery), Terrick Williams's Festa Notturna, Venice, c.1925 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Roland Penrose's Painting 1925 (Sotheby's 28 June 2006 lot 34), James Gunn's Chesterton, Baring and Belloc, 1932 (National Portrait Gallery), Michael Whelan's Malcolm MacDonald, exh.1937 (National Portrait Gallery).
Sources: Leach 1973 (for the firm's addresses); Katlan 1992 p.464; Woodcock 1995 (for the firm's addresses); Woodcock 1996; Woodcock 1997; Sally Woodcock, 'The Roberson Archive: a colourful past', The Picture Restorer, no.12, 1997, pp.14-17; Carlyle 2001 pp.279-80 (for a description of the Archive). The company's records, not consulted, include ledgers (c.400) and records, 1815-1960s, including correspondence with client companies and artists, recipe books 1831-85, personal account books and 'bought ledgers' 1828-1907 (Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge). Many of these papers have been studied in detail by Sally Woodcock and have been used by Leslie Carlyle (see Sources below).
*Archibald Robertson (active 1765, died 1804), Saville Row Passage, adjoining Squib's Auction Room, Conduit St, London by 1781, 15 Charles St, St James's Square 1782-1796. Engraver and publisher, landscape painter and drawing master.
Robertson's trade card as printseller and drawing master, address Saville Row Passage, and so dating to 1781 or before, advertised, among other products, 'Best Swiss-Crayons, variety of Drawing Paper, Port Crayons,/ all sorts of Italian and French Chalks, Colour Boxes,/ the best black Lead and Hair Pencils, Indian Ink, Port-folios/ with or without Leaves, Ladies black Tracing Paper, and/ very fine Transparent Do. for Etching, with Copper Plates/ prepared for Do. Etching Needles' (Banks coll. 56.23, Heal coll. 100.61, repr. Clarke 1981 p.92; Museum of London, repr. Wedd 2001 p.31 as by Paul Sandby, c.1787). Robertson stocked Reeves's colours in 1781 (Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser 1 June 1781).
Robertson was using Conduit St as his address in the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue in 1781. He advertised as A. Robertson from 15 Charles St (Ian Maxted, quoting The Times 26 June 1794). He should not be confused with the miniature painter, Archibald Robertson (1765-1835).
Sources: Ian Maxted, http://www.devon.gov.uk/etched?_IXP_=1&_IXR=121397
Joshua Rogers 1835-1867, Joshua Rogers & Sons 1868-1878. At 133 Bunhill Row London EC 1835-1878, also 1 Shaftesbury St, New North Road 1853, 64 Shaftesbury St 1854-1865. Oilman and tallow chandler, wholesale artists' colourman.
Joshua Rogers (born c.1799) traded in the 1830s as an oilman and tallow chandler, but by the 1840s he was generally listed as an artists' colourman. In the 1851 census he was recorded at Geranium Cottage, Wick Lane, Hackney, as artists' colourman, age 52, with wife Elizabeth, age 57, and daughter Avis, age 16. He advertised the award of the 'Society of Arts Large Special Prize Council's Medal' in 1853 for the superiority of his colours, brushes, pencils, etc (Post Office directory, 1869), an award which elsewhere is identified as being made for his shilling colour box, an innovation which led to the sale of no fewer than 11 million such boxes by 1870 (Hardie 1966 p.24). The business had an account with Roberson, 1872 (Woodcock 1997).
*Richard Rowney, corner of King St, St Giles, London 1785, Broad St, St Giles 1789-1793, jeweller and silversmith. Thomas Rowney by 1790, T. & R. Rowney by 1783?-1801, c.1802?-1806, Richard Rowney 1801-1825, Richard Rowney & Son 1811. At, 95 Holborn Hill 1783-1803, 106 Hatton Garden 1801-1825. Hair merchants and perfumers, later described as wholesale perfumer and hair merchant.
Guest & Rowney, 82 Pall Mall 1801-1802, colour preparers, Thomas Rowney by 1809-1816, artists' colourman, Rowney & Forster 1815-1831, colour preparers, varnish manufacturers and lithographic printers, George Rowney & Co 1832-1844, Rowney, Dillon & Rowney 1844-1848, George Rowney & Co 1848-1923, George Rowney & Co Ltd 1923-1985, Daler-Rowney Ltd from 1985, artists' colourmen and pencil makers. At 30 Bartlett's Building, Holborn by 1809-1816, 14 Oxford St 1814-1818, 51 Rathbone Place 1817-1862, 52 Rathbone Place 1854-1884, 29 Oxford St 1862-1881, renumbered 1881, 64 Oxford St 1881-1907, 61 Brompton Road 1905-1925. Retail outlet at Princes Hall, Piccadilly from 1884 (no.190 until 1896, no.192 until 1893). Factory and wholesale (later head office) at Percy St W (no.10 1850-1970, no.11 1859-1970), retail shop at 12 Percy St from 1952 onwards. Factories at Diana Place, Euston Road, NW1 (no.10 from 1869, no.9 from 1875, no.12 from 1885) and Malden Pencil Works, Kentish Town, NW1 from 1880. Head office and colour factory relocated to Bracknell, Berks 1968.
Rowney's is one of very few artists' supply businesses in the world with its origins in the 18th century still trading today, albeit no longer in family hands. It was Winsor & Newton's closest rival and the only British firm other than Winsor and Newton and Reeves with significant ongoing overseas business.
Early days as perfume makers: The Rowney brothers, Thomas (1760-1832) and Richard Rowney (1764-1824), came to London from Evesham in the 1780s, and are said to have started a business in perfumery in 1789 ('Brief History of George Rowney and Company Ltd', typescript prepared by George Rowney and Co Ltd, n.d., c.1952-57). Accounts of the business's early history are confused. It has been suggested that Thomas Rowney began his career as a lawyer before starting to supply law officers with a variety of writing and other supplies (John Balston, The Whatmans and Wove Paper, West Farleigh, 1998, p.253, quoting a letter from Tom Rowney, 29 November 1980). It would appear that the brothers were established at 95 Holborn Hill by 1783 on the evidence of a payment in a sewer rate book ('Rewriting a company's history', The Times 30 March 1982).
Richard Rowney traded initially as a jeweller and silversmith. Two of his silver marks are recorded, the first entered as a small worker on 1 April 1785 from 95 Holborn Hill, in the second on 30 August 1785 from the corner of King St, St Giles's (Arthur Grimwade, London Goldsmiths 1697-1837: their marks and lives, 1976, p.648). He advertised in 1793 from Broad St, Bloomsbury, that he was selling up his stock-in-trade 'on going into the wholesale perfumery business', giving 95 Holborn Hill as the address of T. & R. Rowney (True Briton 1 May 1793).
The business was advertising from this address by 1791 (The Times 7 April 1791) and stocked T. Reeves & Son's artists' colours in 1799 and those of George Blackman (qv) the following year (The Times 22 July 1799, Morning Herald 31 March 1800). The brothers' trade card, with royal coat of arms and Prince of Wales feathers, advertised 'T. & R. ROWNEY,/ Perfumers, Pocket Book Makers, Cutlers, Comb Makers, &/ Superfine Patent Pallet Water Colour Preparers,/ to their Majesties, the Prince of Wales, & Royal Family/ No. 95 Holborn Hill London./ WHOLESALE & FOR EXPORTATION' (Heal coll. 89.134).
The partnership between Thomas and Richard Rowney as wholesale perfumers at 95 Holborn Hill was dissolved in 1801, the business being carried on by Richard Rowney (London Gazette 29 September 1801). A subsequent partnership between the two brothers as wholesale perfumers, hardwaremen and colourmen at 106 Hatton Garden was dissolved as from 31 December 1806 (London Gazette 8 March 1808). A trade card in the name of Richard Rowney from 95 Holborn Hill advertised Honey Water (Banks coll. 93.38, with added date 1804). While the shop in Holborn Hill may have been kept on until 1803 or later, Richard Rowney had leased premises nearby on the north side of Hatton Garden as early as 1801 for a rent of £38 pa, according to an auction sale advertisement for a substantial brick-built freehold dwelling, late the property of Richard Farmer deceased (The Times 11 July 1801). Richard is said to have acted as an agent for his brother's colours when his brother Thomas set up as an artist's colourman (see below).
Richard Rowney was made bankrupt in 1811 (London Gazette 19 February 1811, 11 May 1816). The perfumery business was listed as Richard Rowney & Son in two directories in 1811. Richard Rowney, perfumer of Hatton Garden, died in 1824 and his son James Thomas Rowney is mentioned in his will (PCC wills). In 1822 and 1823, a possibly connected business, M. Rowney, perfumer and toy warehouse, was listed at 38 Upper North Place, Gray's Inn Lane Road.
Thomas Rowney as colourman: Thomas Rowney went into a short-lived partnership with Thomas Robert Guest in or about 1801, preparing artists' colours, called newly invented patent pallet colours, at 82 Pall Mall ('Brief History of George Rowney and Company Ltd', see above) or, according to one newspaper advertisement, at 81 Pall Mall (these premises, on the south side of Pall Mall, were rented at £70 pa by Messrs Guest & Rowney as under-lessees according to an auction advertisement in The Times 24 September 1801). Guest & Rowney's patent pallet colours in sets from 6s to £3.3s were advertised for sale by W. Middleditch, chemist at Ipswich, in 1802 (Ipswich Journal 9 January 1802). Their partnership, as Guest & Rowney, colour preparers at 82 Pall Mall, was dissolved shortly thereafterwards (London Gazette 16 February 1802), and the lease and stock-in-trade, including colours, colour boxes, drawing desks, sketchbooks, drawing boards, drawing paper, portfolios, pencils and crayons, were sold at auction (The Times 10 February 1802). By about 1809 Thomas Rowney was trading independently from Bartlett's Building, Holborn. His partnership with Thomas Mash, trading as Rowney & Mash at Bartlett's Buildings, was dissolved in 1813 (London Gazette 21 May 1814). At his death in 1832, Thomas Rowney, described as Gentleman of Tottenham, made no mention of his business (PCC wills), suggesting that he had already passed on his interest.
Rowney & Forster, Rowney & Co, 1814-1844: George Rowney (1792-1870), Thomas's son, was apprenticed to his father for seven years from August 1806. He married Esther Forster (d.1865) in November 1813 ('Brief History of George Rowney and Company Ltd', see above); he was in partnership, as Rowney & Forster, with her brother, Richard Forster, varnish maker, from 1815 until Forster's retirement on 31 December 1831, at which time the business was trading as fancy stationers and watercolour manufacturers (London Gazette 23 March 1832). The company then became known as George Rowney & Co, as is clear from trade directories and press advertisements (The Times 7 January 1833).
Rowney & Forster's trade card, as 'Superfine Colour Preparers and Varnish Makers', giving their address at 14 Oxford St, can presumably be dated to c.1814-18 (Heal coll. 89.135). In 1819 Rowney and Forster entered into the additional business of lithographic printers, advertising new publications in lithography (The Times 20 December 1819, and subsequently in 1820 and 1821). They published a series of lithographic drawing books, 1820-3 (example in British Museum Print Room; see also Michael Twyman, Lithography 1800-1850, 1970, p.190), before selling out to William Day, publisher and printer of lithographs, whose earliest recorded imprint is 1824, as 'Successor to Rowney & Forster'.
In an Old Bailey court case in 1829 Richard Forster stated that there were twelve men in the company's employ, but only two regularly in the shop (Proceedings of the Old Bailey). The partnership had an account with Roberson, 1828-9 (Woodcock 1997). It was listed as a subscriber to George Field's Chromatography, 1835 (Carlyle 2001 p.18 n.25). Rowney & Forster's watercolours were stocked in Edinburgh by Robert Hamilton (The Scotsman 29 December 1824).
A work on a labelled millboard supplied by Rowney & Forster is Joseph Kidd's Yellow Warbler, 1831 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, repr. Katlan 1992, p.467, see also p.263). An example with a similar label, but on panel board, is Sir William Allen's Sir Walter Scott, 1831 (National Portrait Gallery). This label reads 'IMPROVED/ Flemish Ground Pannel Boards,/ PREPARED BY/ ROWNEY & FORSTER,/ Artists' Colourmen,/ 51, RATHBONE-PLACE, LONDON./ Prepared Canvass with or without absorbent grounds./ An improved White for Oil Painting./ Also, extra-fine bladder Colour./ Superior Mastic Varnish, Asphultum, and fine light Drying Oil./ With every other material for Oil Painting, of very superior qualities.' (an identical label is in the Johnson Collection).
When the business began trading as G. Rowney & Co in 1832, very similar labels for panel boards and milled boards were produced, as found on Thomas Cole's Ruins of Kenilworth Castle, 1841 (Juniata College Museum of Art, Huntingdon, PA, see Nancy Siegel, 'An oil sketch by Thomas Cole of the Ruins of Kenilworth Castle', Burlington Magazine, vol.144, 2002, p.557). A canvas stamp from this period can be found on William Scott's Robert Moffat, 1842 (National Portrait Gallery). The business also supplied paper: a sketchbook used by J.M.W. Turner in about 1842 bears the Rowney label (Bower 1999 p.81).
Rowney advertised various products in The Art-Union: their new agent preserving envelope for oil colours, invented by Mr Templeton, to supersede the use of the bladder, also new colours for oil painting, Palladium Red and a new permanent Blue equal to Ultramarine (January 1841 p.19), 'Aquaoleum, or a new Preparation of Moist Colours to give the effect of either Oil or Water-Colour Painting', sold in compressible tubes or in small earthenware pans' (June 1842 p.144) and a new permanent White for oil painting (February 1843 p.49). The company is said to have introduced artists' colours in tubes in 1846, invented by Stephen (information from Mr T.H. Rowney to John Kerslake, National Portrait Gallery, 5 May 1964, referring to correspondence with the inventor).
Rowney, Dillon & Rowney 1844-1848: Charles White Dillon joined the business in 1844 ('Brief History of George Rowney and Company Ltd', see above), which traded as Rowney, Dillon & Rowney until Dillon's bankruptcy in 1848 (London Gazette 26 December 1848; see also 12 October 1855). Two sons of George Rowney, George Edward Rowney (1816-64) and Frederick William Rowney (1821-1902) joined the company at this period. The business, firstly as Rowney, Dillon & Rowney, and then as George Rowney & Co, had an account with Roberson, 1845-1908 (Woodcock 1997).
An unillustrated trade catalogue, c.1846, featured 'a new and very superior article in drawing pencils of London manufacture, got up in the French style in polished cedar', together with a list of materials for watercolour painting featuring improved drawing pencils, watercolours in cakes, Harding's tints for miniature painting, Holland's tints for flower painting prepared only by Rowney, Dillon and Rowney, Varley's tints for landscape painting, boxes of watercolours, Rowney and Co's prepared lead pencils, crayons and chalks, brushes for watercolour drawing etc, Whatman's drawing papers etc, Turnbull's London Boards etc, sketchbooks, portfolios, mahogany drawing boards etc, materials for sketching, pencil cases, porte-crayons, etc (no date but containing seven testimonials dating to 1845, [10]pp, appended to H. O'Neill, A Guide to Pictorial Art. How to use the black lead pencil, chalks and water colours, Rowney, Dillon & Rowney, 1846). Similar catalogues are now available online through Google advanced book search.
George Rowney & Co 1848-1923: An idea of the scale of the business in 1861 can be gained from the census record for George Rowney, who was listed at 57 Oakley Square, Somers Town, as artists' colourman, age 70, wife Esther, also age 70, employing 76 men and 32 boys and girls.
An almost contemporary and particularly graphic description of the business, in the form of a periodical article written by or for Henry Mayhew, gives a very different estimate of the size of the business. Mayhew claimed that Rowney's employed over three hundred hands, describing their manufacturing premises at 10 and 11 Percy St as entered by 'a lobby lined with a phalanx of easels and rows of portfolios of the most Brobdignagian proportions', from which one emerged into a large and lofty room, notable for 'the array of colour-boxes, the walls of sketch-books, the plantations of brushes and groves of pencils, besides every other species of artistical materials and implements of every variety and in endless quantity' (Henry Mayhew (ed.), 'A visit to George Rowney and Co., artists' colourmen, Percy Street, Rathbone Place, Oxford Street', The Shops and Companies of London, 1865, pp.220-7, republished separately with added illustrations of Rowney's premises, copy in Victoria and Albert Museum Library, 20.J Box III).
Mayhew identified that there was 'another branch to their business, namely, that of chromo-lithography', whose introduction he attributed to Frederick W. Rowney, apparently in 1851. He also recognised their role as booksellers and publishers. He went on to describe the carpenter's shop for the production of easels and drawing boards and the related finishing room and timber store, the colour grinding and drying rooms, an apartment for forming children's colours, the crayon machine, gum-store and cake watercolours room, the large canvas preparation room, the paper store, the oil colour section with a few old-style colour-grinding slabs, the paper packing and preparation rooms, the book-binding and leather department, the counting house, the rooms for preparing stones for lithography and for preparing millboards and academy boards, a room for an artist to trace paintings for chromolithography, the pencil packing room and, at the top of the premises, a room hung with gigantic rollers of drawing papers and other rooms for specialist purposes. He described the range of colours in preparation and mentioned 'the Lilliputian colour-boxes', great quantities of which were being sent to Paris. He also detailed the preparation of canvas and the operation of filling tubes with colours, among other processes. Finally he mentioned Rowney's retail establishments at 52 Rathbone Place and 29 Oxford St.
George Edward Rowney withdrew from partnership in 1854 (London Gazette 9 October 1855). In due course Frederick W. Rowney's three sons became partners: Frederick junior (1847-1904), Arthur (1859-1942) and Walter George Rowney (1862-1947). Both Arthur and Walter were listed as manufacturing artists colourmen, aged 21 and 19 respectively, in the 1881 census, living at 16 Cumberland Terrace (IGI). Walter, the youngest son, ran the business for the first forty years of the 20th century; he lived in Hampstead for many years. Several members of the family were artists: Frederick senior, who married Emily Goodall, sister of Frederick Goodall RA, his son Walter George and Walter's daughter, Margaret (b.1908).
The business held an appointment to Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the School of Design (The Scotsman 16 December 1848). Rowney's pencil works at Diana Place were damaged by fire in 1889 and 1899, as were the works at Malden Crescent, Kentish Town, in 1912 (The Scotsman 4 July 1912).
Like Winsor & Newton, the business published numerous instruction manuals, which included catalogues of their products, from the 1840s until the 1920s and subsequently. An example is an 1850 watercolour manual with an illustrated trade catalogue, featuring watercolour products, including various products listed in the c.1846 catalogue described above, but also including moist watercolours in tubes, asphaltum prepared for the use of watercolour painters, watercolour Megilp, improved drawing pencils (with numerous testimonials dating to 1848 including from Thomas M. Richardson, J.R. Pickersgill, Frederick Goodall, David Cox Jr and H. O'Neill), Turnbull's London Boards (manufactured of Whatman's picked drawing paper) and eight pages illustrating brushes for watercolour painting etc (Water Colour painting has of late years ..., 44pp, appended to R.P. Noble, A Guide to Water Colour Painting, 1st ed., 1850).
Rowney exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and a contemporary copy of their catalogue described a wide range of products (Wholesale Catalogue, for the Trade only, 99pp, bound into the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition 1851, vol.16, copy in Victoria and Albert Museum Library, EX.1851.135). The business exhibited again at the International Exhibition in 1862 (their exhibits are detailed in a collection of circulars, Yale Center for British Art, ND1550 G36 1862). The main items featured in Rowney catalogues of 1850, c.1864, c.1867, 1892 and 1907 have been listed (Katlan 1992 pp.354-9). Later catalogues continue to feature a very wide range of products.
Rowney advertised heavily. A few examples are given here. In 1874 Rowney advertised that they had received testimonials on the superiority of their colours from Rosa Bonheur, Abraham Cooper, W.C.T. Dobson, E. Duncan, Birket Foster, W. Hunt, Charles Landseer, H. Brittam Lewis, H.J. Lewis, T.M. Richardson, Frederick Taylor and E.M. Ward. The business advertised a new colour, Crimson Alizarine, as light fast, 1891 (see Royal Society of British Artists, 68th annual exhibition, exh.cat., 1891, p.x, and Collectbritain.co.uk). It advertised regularly in The Year's Art: from the Prince's Hall, 190-2 Piccadilly, in addition to 64 Oxford St (1887-95), their Artists' Almanac (1895-9), artists' oil colours in large tubes (1900), 'Introducing George Rowney & Co.'s Tempera Colours' with testimonial from C. Napier Hemy (1913-14).
Rowney products, especially watercolour paints, were widely sold overseas from at least the 1860s. In Australia by H.J. Corder Pty Ltd, Melbourne (Everything for the Artist The H.J. Corder Revised Price List, c.1910, 20pp) and George Robertson, Melbourne (Trade List. Writing & Printing Papers, Account Books, Envelopes, Artists' Materials and Miscellaneous Stationery, 1869, 110pp). In Canada through a subsidiary Rowney (Canada) Ltd at Downsview, Ontario, 1969. In France at the decease of their Paris agent, Monsieur Dreys, Rowney opened a branch at 57 rue Sainte Anne, 1885, moving to 27 rue des Bons Enfants 1906, closing 1922; some products were also sold by L. Bourdillon, Paris (Fabrique de couleurs fines et matériels d'artistes, 1903 or later, 108pp), Guyot Fils Freres, Lyons (Materiel Complet pour Artistes, 1908 or later, 64pp), E. Mary & Fils, Paris (Fournitures Completes pour la peinture a l'huile...Extrait du Catalogue general, 1888), G. Sennelier, Paris (Catalogue General Illustré, 1904, cat. no.26, 160pp). In Spain by E. Texidor, Barcelona (Precios Corrientes de la casa Viuda de E. Texidor, 1920, 219pp). In the United States by A.H. Abbott & Co, Chicago (Catalog of A.H. Abbott & Co., Artists' Materials, School Supplies, Drawing Materials, c.1922, 266pp), Carpenter, Woodward & Morton, Boston (Illustrated Trade Price List of Artists' Materials, 1890), B.K. Elliott Co, Pittsburgh (Elliott's Artists Materials, 1930s, 102pp), Favor, Ruhl & Co, New York (Trade Price List of Artists' Materials, c.1905, 144pp), Geo. Finkenaur Sons & Co, New York (Price list of Winsor & Newton's and Rowney & Co.'s water colors in cakes, moist pans, and tubes, c.1890, 4pp, collection Wintherthur Museum), Ripka & Co, Philadelphia (trade catalogue, c.1878-81, see Katlan 1992 p.354), Wadsworth, Howland & Co, Boston (Catalogue of Colors, Artists' Materials, Drafting Instruments and Supplies, 1894, 179pp).
It is possible that Rowney did not have as significant a trade in artists' canvas as Roberson or Winsor & Newton, on the basis of surviving marked canvases. Works on Rowney supports from the 1840s and 1850s include Thomas Sully's Mrs Benjamin Franklin Sands, 1840 (Baltimore Museum of Art, see Katlan 1987 p.275) and Mrs James Montgomery, c.1845 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Caldwell 1994 p.359), Unknown artist, Thomas Croker, c.1849, with label for milled boards and advertising oil colours in tubes and bladders (National Portrait Gallery), Ford Madox Brown's The First Translation of the Bible into English, begun 1847 (Bradford City Art Gallery, see Townsend 2004 p.94), William Dyce's The Garden of Gethsemane, late 1850s (Walker Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988), Steven Pearce's Sir Richard Collinson, 1855, Sir Henry Kellett, exh.1856, Sherard Osborn, 1857, and Sir Edward Belcher, c.1859 (all National Portrait Gallery). John Brett expressed a preference for Winsor & Newton materials to those of Rowney, as he advised his artist sister, Rosa Brett, in 1859, 'I would not use Rowneys [French blue] if I had any other' (Bennett 1988 p.17).
From the 1870s and 1880s, David Bates's Interior of a Welsh Cottage, ?1873 (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996), Fedor Encke's Mrs Edward Stieglitz, 1884 (Museum of the City of New York, see Katlan 1987 p.287, repr. Katlan 1992 p.469), Elizabeth King's Baron Kelvin, 1886-7 (National Portrait Gallery). William Holman Hunt was using Rowney in 1876 when a case including canvas was despatched to him in Jerusalem (Bennett 1988 p.88).
From the 1890s and 1900s, Luke Fildes's Sir Frederick Treves, 1896, William Symons's J.F. Bentley, 1902, and Frank Bennett's Sir Theodore Martin, 1908 (all National Portrait Gallery). John Singer Sargent used sketchbooks supplied by Rowney, c.1895, 1903, 1911 (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, see Stewart 2000 pp.23, 26, 28, 32).
George Rowney & Co Ltd 1924-1985: The business became a limited company in 1924 with four directors, Walter George Rowney as managing director (see above), Noel Montague Rowney, R.D.B. Woods and F.P. Dorritzi. Walter George Rowney's son, Thomas (b.1910), entered into the business in 1932 and became a director in 1935 and managing director in 1946. Serious damage from bombing occurred at Diana Place and Percy St in 1940 and 1941. An account of working practices at Rowney's was published in 1962 (Robert Wraight, 'Artists' Colourman: 2. Rowney's', The Studio, vol.164, November 1962, pp.200-3). The business was purchased for about £600,000 for a 72% stake by Morgan Crucible Co, 1969 (The Times 28 January 1969), and from them by the Daler-Board Co, 1983, to become Daler-Rowney Ltd in 1985, see the company's website, http://www.daler-rowney.com/en/content/about-us. The retail shop at 12 Percy Place was relocated to the basement of the premises in 2005, trading under new management.
From the 1930s, works on Rowney materials include Lamorna Birch's The Barle near Dulverton, 1931, with Quality X stamp (Sotheby's 27 June 2006 lot 78) and George Wright's Huntsmen and Hounds going away in Full Cry, before 1938, with additional stamp Quality A canvas (Walker Art Gallery, see Morris 1996). Among the oil paints left in Gwen John's studio on her death in 1939 was a supply of Rowney's colours, the only English colourman so represented (Mary Bustin, 'The Rules or Problems of Painting: Gwen John's Later Painting Technique', in David Fraser Jenkins and Chris Stephens (eds), Gwen John and Augustus John, Tate Publishing, 2004, p.199). The company was in correspondence with Gluck concerning the appearance of her paintings from the late 1930s (Sitwell 1990). It advertised regularly in The Artist: 'Rowney's Sketching Equipment' (vol.7, June 1934), also their egg tempera colours, reproducing a tempera by W. Russell Flint executed in these colours (Art Review 1935).
Sources: This history is partly based on a 'Brief History of George Rowney and Company Ltd', typescript, n.d., c.1952-7 (copy on National Portrait Gallery files); this 'Brief History' is largely followed by Leach 1973 and Katlan 1992. For family names and dates, see The Rowney Family: Painting and Production in Hampstead, exh. leaflet, Hampstead Museum, 1998. See also Katlan 1992 pp.354-9 (for trade catalogues), 466-70; Carlyle 2001 pp.278-9. The Rowney company records are limited in extent (see Carlyle 2001 pp.278-9). Mr T.H. Rowney informed a member of National Portrait Gallery staff in 1964 that the company had very poor records for the period 1810-40.
